Disinterest, Access Behind Low Youth Voter Turnout

Poll of the Day: Young people don't vote for all the reasons you'd expect them not to.

In the endless struggle to figure out why so many young people don't vote, Elections Canada commissioned a poll that found the most popular reasons for not casting ballots is – not so shockingly – being uninterested in politics and not having enough knowledge about politics or even how to vote. The poll found that only 28 per cent of young people who said they didn't follow politics voted, while 15 per cent of all youth polled said they didn't vote because their concerns weren't being addressed by politicians. (The poll doesn't mention what "concerns" would get more youth to vote. The environment? Drug legalization? Xbox? Anyhow...) The poll also looked at why groups of typically low turnout- aboriginals, ethnic groups, rural Canadians, the unemployed, and the disabled – and found that accessibility to voting stations and the vote-registration process could be improved to encourage them to vote more often. All told, 64 per cent of non-voters said accessibility to polls was why they didn't vote, owing to being to busy with school, work, or family or being away from their riding. We've maintained that low youth turnout can probably be linked to a lack of education on how voting and the political system work in this country, and that explaining at a younger age why it's important to keep track of these things would probably would probably do far more for getting out the vote than e-voting or putting polling stations in locations where youth are more apt to visit, as the survey recommends.