young voters have the power

So are young voters going to let their parents and grandparents choose a government for them
again?
We see it every election: not enough people vote, and those who do tend to be older. According
to Elections Canada, the youngest voters in the 2011 federal election were the ones least likely to
actually get out to the polls. Those aged 18 to 24 had a voter participation rate of 38.8 per cent
and those aged 25 to 34 had a rate of 45.1 per cent.
At the other end of the spectrum, the voter participation rate for those aged 55 to 64 was 71.5 per
cent, while for those aged 65 to 74 it was an incredible 75.1 per cent. No wonder politicians
campaign hard in "older" neighbourhoods.
As elusive as the youth vote has been in recent years, this time around the candidates would be
well-advised to go after it hard. Members of the millennial' generation - those born since 1980 are becoming an increasingly important population bloc and a potentially important voting bloc as
well.
According to a just-released study by Samara Canada, while millennials may not be voters, they
are plenty political. Not only were they more likely as a group to engage in online political
activities than the broader population, they were as likely as seniors to have volunteered in an
election or to have signed a petition. If someone could get them to turn out this time, it could have
a substantial impact on the outcome in specific ridings - perhaps on the entire election.
To get an idea of just how powerful the youth vote could be, I did a few projections. I wanted to
know what the distribution of voters would probably look like if 2011 voting patterns were followed
- and what it might look like if younger voters participated more like older ones.
open quote 761b1bThe youth vote is there for the taking, but it's likely to be as elusive in 2015 as
it was four years ago.
To look at the number of potential voters by age, I used population growth figures from Statistics
Canada showing the way that each age group has changed since 2011. I then applied the voter
participation rates to each of those groups.
Result? If 2011 patterns are followed, we will have a rather old subset of the population choosing
our next government. In fact, if the voter participation rates are the same as they were in 2011, 45
per cent of the votes cast will come from those aged 55 and above, and about 24 per cent almost one vote in four - will come from those over 65. Just over 20 per cent of votes will come
from those under 35, even though they now comprise 28 per cent of the population compared to
the 20 per cent aged over 65.
Slide1
But what if those aged under 35 voted in the same numbers as those aged 55 to 64? As you can

see from the graph below, that would make a dramatic difference to outcome of the election. It
would, in fact, give younger voters a decisive advantage over older ones in choosing the
government. In this scenario, 30 per cent of voters would be under 35 - and only 21 per cent
would be over 65.
Slide2
Sadly, it does not look particularly likely that young voters will reverse the old trends. In a 2011
post-election survey conducted by Statistics Canada of those 18 to 34 who did not vote, around
30 per cent said it was because they "were not interested in voting".
For them to vote, someone would have to get them interested - make them believe there's
something for them in participating in the process.
Could disturbingly high youth unemployment rates and buzz about a Canadian recession be
enough to get young Canadians to vote? Possibly not. Voting among all groups does tend to go
higher when the economy is weak, which is something we saw in 2011. Fresh on the heels of the
global crisis and a Canadian recession (and an increase in the unemployment rate), Canadians
voted in greater numbers in 2011 than they did in 2008 in all age groups except for those
under 35.
As unhappy as younger Canadians were about the economy, they clearly did not feel that any
political party offered much hope to change things around. Still, the Samara study suggests that
things might have been different if politicians had reached out to them a bit more. According to
their research, voters under 30 were far less likely to have had direct contact with a political party
or politician, whether by mail, online or in person.
So the youth vote is there for the taking, but it's likely to be as elusive in 2015 as it was four years
ago. The politician who can convince younger voters he or she can do something for them might
turn that advantage into victory. Younger voters could win too - by taking ownership of their share
of political power. But it'll only happen if they want it to happen.

youth vote canada