Given the fifty per cent turnout rates of 2005, and the much worse security environment and disillusionment in 2009, any turnout rate between forty and forty-five per cent in 2009 would seem to be quite good...Voter turnout in Alberta's 2008 Provincial Eleciton: 40.6%
(ht @archiemc for the New Yorker link)
Wouldn't that be something... if the voter turnout was higher in Afghanistan than in Alberta? And we don't even have to ink our thumbs and face death to vote.
ReplyDeleteYou know who hasn't taken enough blame for the low voter turnout for the provincial election? How about Albertans. Especially "ordinary" people who have kitchen tables.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how many people blame the Tories for the low turnout? They got enough people out to vote for their candidates, do they also have to get people out to vote for the opposition? Those of you who are involved with the opposition parties, how much soul searching took place regarding the number of votes that were sitting at home and no one reached?
Well Garth, it would help democracy if the chief electoral officer could appoint independent returning officers rather than Tory hacks. It would also help if Elections Alberta expanded voting hours and polling locations, rather than cutting them. It would help if Elections Alberta sponsored regular voter enumerations and allowed opposition parties the same access to up-to-date voting lists as the Tories. And it would help if the Tory-appointed returning officers would establish the same number of polling locations in areas where opposition support is considered strong, rather than flooding polling booths in Tory-supporting neighbourhoods.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, you keep puking out Tom Olsen's Public Affairs Bureau talking points if it makes you feel better.
Mr. Snelgrove's Creepy Goattee (although I think he's clean shaven now),
ReplyDeleteSo are you saying that the Tories stole the election? If the voting stations were open later the election would have been different?
I voted NDP, but I guess you know better and I'm just following the PAB. Keep up the good work Mr. Goattee.
"You know who hasn't taken enough blame for the low voter turnout for the provincial election? How about Albertans. Especially "ordinary" people who have kitchen tables."
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you can blame ordinary Albertans for making the political process so irrelevant to them that they don't think enough of it to participate.
Now that we have seen the Liberal Democratic Party defeated in Japan after a 50+ year monopoly on power, maybe we will soon see a sea change in Alberta politics… we can only hope.
ReplyDelete