The election of Geoff Milligan on Friday has brought the Town of Peace River's Council back up to full strength after Jim Hancock resigned in May for a job transfer. Geoff brings a great deal of experience from his previous years on Town Council and former work life and will be a welcome addition. Congratulations, Geoff!
I'd also like to offer thanks to Tom Day and Hayden Gust for running in the by-election--it takes courage to put yourself out there--and to the 408 residents who took time in the busy month of June to cast a ballot.
Not to take away from the candidates in any way, since between-election vacancies on Council are often filled by acclamation, but this is a pretty sad voter turnout--just under 9% by my calculations (see below for explanation of how I came to this number). Where were the other 91% of citizens?
In October, when I was elected to Town Council, it seemed like the mayoralty race and the high number of candidates brought out a lot of voters. But using the same method to calculate that voter turnout, it was only about 30%. Certainly better than for the by-election (it's typical for by-elections to have a smaller turnout) but that's still an astonishing 70% choosing not to have a say in who represents them on Town Council.
The poor performance of voters in the March provincial election has sparked a great deal of discussion and debate that may have spillover at the local level. The Edmonton Journal is currently running a 3-part series called Project Democracy to look at the topic.
The authors of the Sunday article, "Too 'distracted' to vote?", note that "Leaders from municipal councils to the House of Commons worry a troubling trend is emerging across the country, as more people disengage from the democratic process" (p. A3). The article notes that 6 in 10 residents stayed home in March, giving Alberta what appears to be an historic low voter turnout and the dubious distinction of having the lowest in Canada for recent provincial elections (41.4%).
This turnout has sparked Elections Alberta to commission a first-ever post-election survey to gauge public attitudes on voting. I hope that the results and ensuing discussion will lead to greater understanding of why people appear to be so disengaged at all levels of government.
I can't help but wonder what recent immigrants from struggling democracies or countries where there is no vote think about how little our citizens appear to value the gift of living in a democracy.
Compulsory voting is one method that has been proposed to improve turnout. It is used in Australia and other democracies and might be dramatic enough to alert citizens to the importance of the vote. But I do hope there are also other ways to get people engaged, and perhaps we must start at the municipal level, where government is closest to the people.
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Estimating Voter Turnout:
Unfortunately, Statistics Canada doesn't make it easy to figure out how many eligible voters live in the Town of Peace River. One reason is that ages are divided up in 5 year segments, which means that 18 and 19 year olds--potential voters--are included in the 15-19 segment. But, going with the 2006 census numbers, here's how I estimated the voter turnout in Friday's by-election:
Population in 2006: 6315.
Subtract 1840 children aged 0-19
6315 - 1840 = 4475
Add back in 105 18 year-olds and 105 19 year-olds (assuming 105/year in the 15-19 segment; students who live away are counted on their parents' census)
4475 + 210 = 4685
408 voters divided by 4685 eligible voters and you get an estimated voter turnout of 8.7%.
For the October municipal election, using the total votes cast for the two mayoralty candidates (1425), the estimated turnout was 30.4%, based on 4685 eligible voters.
(If anyone reading this sees an error in my calculations or knows of a better way to do them, please let me know!)
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