The U of T's Varsity is reporting that Elections Canada has cancelled the special polling stations that were to be set up on campus to enable student's who live in residence to vote in Monday's Federal Election, a first time for most of the students in question.
The story, Campus Voting Sites Axed (written by Sarah Barmak), draws some pretty interesting conclusions... It seems that both the liberal candidate and the conservative candidate merely voiced what they consider to be some "legality concerns" of the polling stations to Elections Canada (who had already confirmed the polling stations with the U of T SAC) which prompted the stations to be cancelled.
The real kicker here, if you can ignore the obvious issues with these young potential voters who are now left out in a cold political landscape, is that this riding in particular is Olivia Chow's riding (which in the last election she only lost by c. 800 votes and it is well known that the NDP has a large voter support base on this campus).
This kind of BS Politics is exactly why youth won't and don't vote. Students manage to vote without issue on campuses all across Canada - so when something like this happens it's hard not to see it as politcal interference typical of big parties that don't think the youth vote (or voice) should count. Or in this case, by parties that feel maybe the youth vote would count just a little too much.
Hat Tip: Toby
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
It Makes you Wonder Why the Youth Vote is so Hard to Get Out...
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3 comments:
Only the Liberal candidate opposed this special voting arrangement. Read the quoted article.
"I spoke to (Conservative candidate) Sam Goldstein's campaign office and I can tell you, they didn't know either."
So I'll admit I am drawing a conclusion from my own speculation given that (it's my blog) AND the article has room enough to touch on the fact that the liberal team went out of their way to contact the conservative team regarding this "concern." However, it should be noted that neither campaign team would like you to think that they opposed anything - they were just doing their duty to democracy.
Whichever way you want to spin it it's still wrong. It's things like this that contribute to people feeling cynical towards the voting process and anytime we fail to engage citizens in that process (especially if there is ulterior political motives) we hurt our own democracy.
the conservatives have more to gain from people voting ndp then the liberals have to gain from preventing it
but i agree that big part mentality turns people off
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