Election day isn’t until Saturday, but results from the first 12 days of electronic and phone voting suggest that this election may have the lowest turnout in Halifax history. As of Wednesday at 10:30am, 47,476 people have cast votes, representing just 16 percent of eligible voters. Elections officer Cathy Mellet wouldn’t make any predictions about total turnout. “With elections,” she says, “you just don’t know until the end of the day Saturday.” But previously Mellet had anticipated that more than half of all votes would be cast electronically, through early voting. If so, and if present trends continue through to the end of electronic voting on Thursday, total voter turnout would be substantially lower than record low 37 percent of last election. The chart above shows the voter turnout so far, by age. The rates for 18- and 19-year-olds may be so high because there are so few on the voting list—just 200 and 2,000, respectively. Most ages have more than 3,000. The older ages are grouped together because the turnout drops from very high—near 23 percent at age 72—to very low, under 10 percent in the 90s, with the expectation that the elderly will vote in person on election day.
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2012.
Can you explain what voter turnout means here, Tim? Do you mean % of the total number of people voting, or % of the eligible voters in that age category?
Percentage in each age group is the percentage of eligible voters in that age group who have voted.
That sucks I was hoping the ease of online voting would have increased participation among the younger demos. Perhaps they need to put more money/effort into promoting that fact, and “get out the vote” programs. Municipal politics will be dominated by the elderly and their concerns, making it harder to get the things done to attract young folks to come live in the city, as long as the numbers stay like this.
People my age aren’t voting because of the lack of choice. Makes really no difference who wins, it will all be the same. i’m 25 part of the lowest percentage and have voted.
Anyone decrying a lack of choice clearly hasn’t done their homework. Yes, there is one candidate who provides us more of the same, but the others? I’ll even grant you that the three late-comers aren’t really worth voting for (though I think Eisses could make a go of it if he takes the next election more seriously). Fred Connors though, and Tom Martin even more so, would be a positive voice for change. As I’ve said before, if Fred were running for council in the north end of Halifax, he’d have my vote there. As it stands, I’ve voted for Tom Martin for mayor, and I’m proud to say so.
Hmmm. My hypothesis: a large portion of the 20-30 demographic are students. Many students are transient and would have moved since the last election. Therefore, they would not have received voter cards, unless they specifically added themselves to the voter list. The need to check voter status wasn’t very evident… so perhaps many of them didn’t sign up to be on this list. No card = no early voting.
This is just wild guessing. I suppose if we see a big jump in this group come Saturday I can pat myself on the back.