“People get the politicians they deserve.” 

It’s a deadly accurate cliché that encourages citizens to look in the mirror to find the source of their troubles, but most of us can’t be bothered to introspect. To the extent that we care, we often blame others or “the system” for our lack of interest in politics and our low level of participation in the electoral process.

Alberta’s editorial pages have been weighed down with hand-wringing theories about the decline in voter participation in our province. The trend is the same elsewhere in the country, but, with the lowest participation in the country, we Albertans have outdone our compatriots, reflecting the competitive spirit we’re known for.

All the usual explanations and proposed solutions have faults. Some blame our low turnout on the lack of a truly competitive environment in Alberta politics. But media commentators went out of their way in the recent Alberta campaign to play up poll numbers showing a real race was in the offing—the first in 15 years. Still, turnout dropped, with the only significant boost in participation appearing to come from a segment of Conservative voters who were worried enough by the prospect of a non-Tory government to show up on election day. 

This isn’t an aberration, by the way. Across the country, higher turnouts tend to produce greater conservative legislative representation, a problem for theorists who assert that we would have many more left-wing governments if more people voted. 

Voter turnout is also remaining static or dropping in provinces with hugely competitive electoral environments. Quebec’s three-cornered race last year produced a less than one per cent bump in turnout. Nova Scotia has elected minority governments three out of the last four contests, yet turnout is hitting record lows there as well. 

Preston Manning and others have suggested convening a citizens’ assembly along the lines of the recent one in British Columbia, and/or placing various models of democratic reform on the ballot. These proposals are often made in conjunction with fixed election dates as a way of addressing voter cynicism over partisan manipulation of election timing. Well, B.C. went for “all of the above” in its 2005 general election. The result was a nine percentage point drop in voter turnout.

New Brunswick, P.E.I., Quebec, and Ontario have all tried various combinations of these “democratic reform” proposals, with similar results. Voters reject the reforms and turnout remains the same or drops. Ontario even added longer polling hours, more advance polls, and more polling stations to the mix in 2007, but turnout still hit a record low. Tinkering with electoral mechanics doesn’t address the fundamental reasons people don’t vote.

The lack of a “real choice” among parties is sometimes cited as a reason for declining voter interest, but we have more political variety in Alberta and Canada than at any other time since the Depression. And one could hardly argue that the various Alberta parties agreed on the major issues, from tar sands development and royalties to affordable housing and rent control. And party platforms and third-party information about issues have never been more available to the public than they are today.

A 2003 Elections Canada survey (available on their website) looked at reasons for voter non-participation, and the traditional responses were well represented^{- in the results:} “vote wouldn’t matter,” “didn’t know where or when,” and “didn’t care about the issues.” The most popular answer, however, was “just not interested.” People are increasingly tuning out electoral politics—it just doesn’t exist for them. And the trend is strongest among teens and twentysomethings, who gave this response at a rate almost twice that of people close to or beyond retirement age. 

The one other factor heavily skewed towards younger voters was “busy at work,” a very telling response that reflects a shrinking of one’s worldview to the immediate environment of family and close friends. This insularity means less identification with the problems of others and therefore less willingness to cooperate in the pursuit of common goals. It’s a wholesale loss of civic identity and a severing of the link between the good of the individual and the good of society. Younger people are less likely to see the two as synonymous or even mutually dependent. You focus on you and yours and screw the rest. And if someone really gets on your case, you have the option of civil litigation, with the courts increasingly replacing politics as the venue for redress of grievances, much like the situation south of the border.

Younger eligible voters are also impacted disproportionately by technology. Online and text message polls, and other instant surveys for everything from political preferences to amateur entertainers, have perhaps cheapened the voting experience and turned it into a disposable act. Voting in a real election takes extra effort—i.e., going to the polling place during certain hours, and thinking about complex issues that exceed our rapidly diminishing attention spans.

The responsibility for changing this trend starts at home. Children are much more likely to vote and to participate in institutions that stretch beyond their immediate interests if their parents do, and especially if their parents take the time to discuss these matters with them. Civic education must also become a greater component of school curricula if we really do believe that our democratic machinery is worth saving.

Because what we’ve shown so far is that we deserve politicians who are not interested in society’s well-being, because we aren’t either.

inexileeverywhere@gmail.com