» On Iran’s Voters List
BC’s voter turnout was 51% of eligible voters and 56% of registered voters. Yes, that’s sad, but it’s not the magic “less than 50%” that the media is reporting.
I have no problem that my favourite coffee shop and my favourite theatre troupe get the voter turn-out wrong: they just heard it from the media. And I understand why the media gets it wrong:
- it involves numbers, which journalists are notoriously bad at
- it’s a better story if you report it as under 50%
BC has one of the most accurate voters lists in the world, so the difference between eligible and registered voters is small. Our list is accurate because BC is one of the most developed places in the world: with land titles and integrated databases all over the place. And yet, BC registers plenty of people in conjunction with voting and our polling places occasionally run out of ballots (there are contingency plans).
How good do you think Iran’s voters list is? There are a lot of issues with the Iranian election, but saying it’s illegitimate because their voters list sucks is going too far. Besides, what are the chances the media got those numbers right when they can’t even read an Elections BC news release?
Tangentially, I read a story in my dead-tree newspaper saying that turnout in our municipal elections in 2006 was 25% – 27% and that a city panel struck to investigate and solve this problem hasn’t met during the last seventeen months.
My reaction to low voter turnout is mostly “I don’t care” and a little “good”! If voting is not physically accessible or if people actually cannot vote, then I think that is a significant problem that should be solved. And I’m in favour of some proposals to make it even easier to vote, such as the federal Bill C-40 to increase advanced polling days and, more significantly, to effectively create two polling days by having an “advanced polling” day on the day before polling day with the same locations and hours as polling day.
But the lack of voter turnout doesn’t bother me. If people don’t care or are uninformed or lazy, I’m glad that they’ve taken themselves out of the election.
Really? If the fact that the city (and provincial and federal governemnts) take your money and then decide how to spend it is not enough to “engage” you, then what is?
Don
22 Jun 09 at 8:38 am
I wrote Jared a long email and edited it down to three sentences because I had the time to write a short one.
It had to do with rebellion and slavery, etc. The gist of one part was that it is safer to constructively engage society than it is to ignore it.
For example, if Marc Emery wasn’t a public political figure, if instead he had been living in a yurt in the interior, I suspect the Feds wouldn’t have delayed his extradition at all. He’d be in the middle of a decades-long American incarceration right now.
Word. You ride the bull, or the bull rides you.
Jack
22 Jun 09 at 10:07 am