Every vote is equal, but not everyone is equally likely to vote. And politicians focus their efforts accordingly.
According to Statistics Canada, the older you are, the more likely you are to vote, at least up until age 74, when health problems might prevent you from getting to the polls. You’re also more likely to vote if you have a job, own your home, lived in the same place for a while, and if you have a university degree.
“When people feel settled, that’s when they vote,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs. “When they’re part of a community, that’s when they vote. When you’re transient, you don’t, you’re less likely.”
So why does this matter? Take a quick look at parties’ policies lately.
Family-friendly politics
Right now, all three parties have policies related to child care and tax benefits for families: all aimed at families, particularly suburban families, said Bricker.
It’s not a coincidence. “If you want to win an election in Canada, you now have to win in the suburbs,” he said. It’s the most rapidly-growing part of the country, he said, as well as the location of many new ridings this election.
Not only that, but the voters there can be swayed to vote for different parties, he thinks.
“These people could go one way or the other depending on the campaign itself and how they feel the issues have been characterized and whether or not they feel the candidates are speaking to their needs.”
They have many needs, he said: dealing with mortgages, child care, elder care, and transportation are some of the big ones.
“So the reason you’re seeing all parties beating the drum on family benefits is to try and attract these people.”
Strategically, the suburban vote, in particular the multicultural suburban vote, is up for grabs, he said, and the parties know it. It doesn’t help the Conservatives to add to their lead in rural Canada, he said, or the NDP to more completely win downtown Hamilton.
“You have to find a way to break through in the 905 or in the Lower Mainland in BC. Because those are the ridings that could switch back and forth depending on the campaign itself.”
“They have the most power in the country because there’s so many of them, because their roots in the political system are not deep, because they’re still open-minded about how they will vote and they’ve demonstrated that.”
Universal Single Person Benefit?
But a focus on suburban families leaves a lot of people out: single people, young people, urban people, poorer people.
“Political parties always paid lip service to the fact that they want to get everybody out,” said Jon Pammett, a political science professor at Carleton University who has researched voter turnout. But in practice, he said, they’re more practical: “They know that the most sensible thing for them to do in elections is to look at people who might already be committed to them or inclined toward them and try to get them out.”
“That’s probably a lot more productive to them than going to some young person who might or might not vote in the first place or might or might not vote for them in the second place.”
QUIZ: How statistically-likely are you to vote?
Everybody says that they will focus on the youth vote, said Bricker, but he doesn’t believe it’s a smart strategy.
“If you want an army that doesn’t show up on the field, you focus on the youth vote.”
Not just demographics
Demographics don’t tell the whole story though. While older people are more likely to vote, for example, they don’t necessarily vote for the same party, said Pammett. “Who do older people vote for? Well there’s some age relationship, but not that strongly with the political parties and it does vary by region. You can’t say I’ve identified all the older voters and they’re all going to vote Conservative. Well, they’re not.”
“It’s one thing to pick a group. It’s another thing to assume that that group is going to go for you.”
Small, targeted policies aren’t necessarily the way to win either, he said. Larger issues are important too. “People who live in the suburbs are very sensitive to the way the overall economy is going,” he said.
“People are also more likely to think not of their own personal wallets, the so-called pocketbook vote. They are less likely in general to respond to those things than they are to respond to judgements that they make and to appeals that the parties make about the overall state of the economy.”
He expects that the broader state of the economy will become more of a focus during the campaign. “That’s certainly what the opposition will be drumming away on.”
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