Some students will be left to their own devices if they want to cast a ballot on September 20..Elections Canada’s recent cancellation of special campus polls has left more than 100,000 students at 109 post-secondary institutions across the nation concerned about where they will cast a ballot this September, according to Blacklock’s Reporter..Kalin McCluskey, executive director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, said this will have a clear impact on students..“I do know we had large numbers of students who took advantage of this program. We are really concerned about the loss of that program. It made voting very accessible for students.”.McCluskey said the September 20 election’s coinciding with the start of the new semester may cause some confusion among students..When the Vote On Campus program was introduced in 2015, Elections Canada opened special polling stations allowing postsecondary students to cast ballots on campus. Federal ridings with the ten largest campuses all elected Liberal and NDP MPs in the 2019 election at the universities of Alberta, British Columbia, Laval, McGill, Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo, and Western Ontario..The initial program was open at 39 universities and colleges, and saw 70,000 votes cast. In 2019, the program expanded to 109 campuses and attracted approximately 111,300 voters. The program has since recently been cancelled due to the pandemic and lack of planning..On August 18 in a technical briefing with Elections Canada, reporters were told that voting for students living temporarily on a campus was complicated. An official said “the legal criteria in the Canada Elections Act is for each elector to identify where their place of ordinary residence is.”.The official explained in a case such as a student attending post-secondary who intends to return to their parent’s residence, they would need to identify their parents residence as their place of ordinary residence..“But another students who lives on campus and who has left their parent’s place and has no intention to return there could self-identify to vote in the electoral district where the campus is located.”.The official said a student’s riding is more a question of where the heart or home of them is..Federal data says young voters under 24 have the lowest rates of turnout compared to any other age group. Average turnout was 54% of those under 24 voting in the last campaign, compared to 79% of retirees and 73% of working-age Canadians over 55..Elections Canada wrote in a June 14 report that this followed the same general trend in Canadian elections since 2004. They did note they saw “a surge up to 57% in 2015, participation of voters aged 18-24 decreased.”.According to staff “turnout generally increased with age.” Data shows gender also seems to effect turnout, with more women than men opting to cast a ballot. Citizens in the Maritimes and Saskatchewan were seen to vote more often than Ontario or Québecers..Jackie Conroy is a reporter for the Western Standard.jconroy@westernstandardonline.com
