Ontario election: Why don’t 905 residents vote?

Sure, voter turnout’s been decreasing all over the country. But Global News has found that the 905 – the swiftly growing, dynamic area surrounding Toronto – boasted the ridings with the lowest turnout in the last Ontario election.

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How come?

Here are a few theories we’ve been exploring:

1.New Canadians

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The Peel region has the highest proportion of immigrants in the Toronto area, at 50.5%. The high number of new Canadian residents may not be registered yet to vote, or they may not know what the process is.

Grace Skogstad, Professor and Chair of Political Sciences at the University of Toronto, suggests you may get a low voter turnout “if you’ve got more probably what you would call itinerant voters, people who haven’t been in Canada necessarily for a long period of time.”

Both the parties and Elections Ontario need to do a better job of reaching out to people whose first language isn’t English, said Bonnie Crombie, Mississauga councillor and mayoral candidate.

“There may be a language barrier,” she said. “Over 41 per cent of people in Mississauga speak a first language other than English. Reaching these people and convincing them to vote may be difficult.”

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2. Young (non-)voters.

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Peel Region’s median age, according to the 2011 census, was 36.9 years – the youngest in the Toronto region.

“Generally that you would expect younger people don’t vote,” Skogstad said.

“A lot of people suggest that we go to electronic voting to make that possible. … We can pass money electronically on the computer, pay for things electronically on the computer, I don’t know why we shouldn’t be able to vote, you know, electronically. And I think that would really help a lot to get people out voting, too. It doesn’t mean they are going to be better informed, but what it does mean is that it is easier for them to vote, right?”

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3. Time-pressed commuters

The average Peel resident spends 82 minutes getting to work. That leaves little time to seek out polling stations close to home.

Electronic voting would encourage voter participation among those who need to leave their home riding at the crack of dawn to get to work, says Steven Mahoney, former member of parliament and Mayoral Candidate for Mississauga.

“Eventually going to electronic voting would be one terrific solution to increase turnout. I don’t know if it would solve every problem, but if people could actually vote with a key from their computer at home, in set specific times, advanced polling, things of that nature could improve it. So, you know, you’d think, with the technology we have today, we should be able to get there,” he said.

Then there are people like Keith Sinclair. Sinclair works 45 minutes away from his home in Oshawa and would give up working a double shift to cast his vote at the polling station. He hasn’t missed an election since he has been old enough to vote.

“It’s my democratic right to be able to vote.”

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For those who may not be as dedicated, Elections Ontario says it made voting more accessible in 2011.   

“We were able to remove some barriers to voting and introduce new services such as vote-by-mail, home visits, hospital visits and assistive voting technology,” said Loren Wells, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for Elections Ontario.

But few are aware of how these options work, or even that they’re available.

“Voter turnout is a shared responsibility between electoral agencies, the media, the candidates, the parties, and the voter,” Wells said. “It’s a partnership and, for the process to work we all have to play a role.”

Part of the reason behind the low turnout could simply be a disillusionment with the voting process, says University of Toronto politics professor Clifford Orwin.

“When you vote it makes a fairly strong statement. You are making a fairly strong statement to the cause or to the process. And I think that people are feeling that strong commitment increasingly less,” he said.