Please vote. Pleaaaase. Every one of you who is able, go vote. If you don’t know enough about politics to have a proper opinion, go learn. You’ve got all night, as a citizen it’s the absolute least you can do. The voter turnout in 2008 was 58.8%, and that is absolutely disgusting. The only election that has ever been worse was 1898. Even if you hate everybody and you don’t think your vote matters, go do it anyway. This isn’t just something that only effects your life, this is a matter of importance to everyone in the country, and determines how other countries regard us on the world stage.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
This’ll be my first year voting, and I know who I’m voting.
First election I can vote, I plan too. I have to check if I need to set anything up first, not quite sure.
I’m voting tomorrow for the first time. I was too young otherwise. And I’m dragging a few uninitiated and uninvolved friends and telling them who to vote for. XD
*affects your life
I’m so sorry. Words cannot express how upset I am that my first comment is this.
(I voted Sex Party)
I had always been taught that “affect” had emotional implications, like “she was deeply affected by the death of her cat” and “effect” was physical, like “cutting funding to programs that build water treatment centres on reserves will have a negative effect on the health of the people residing in the communities.”
“Affect” is a verb, “effect” is a noun.
Your actions can affect something.
Your actions have an effect.
In other news, not voting, but only because I don’t live in Canada.
That’s mostly true. However, in some (rare) special cases, “affect” can be a noun, and “effect” a verb. For example, one can effect change–meaning to bring it about, rather than to influence change that is already happening.
As TheOtherSarah said, while effect is USUALLY a noun and affect USUALLY a verb, effect can be used as a verb when you’re referring to causation or bringing something about (as opposed to influencing). Affect is a noun when you’re using it to refer to an emotion, often used in the study of psychology. There are also a few other forms, like using affected as an adjective (an affected accent) to indicate something feigned or artificial.
On the subject of voting, while I’m not familiar with Canadian issues and so couldn’t comment on the actual topics at ballot, is it really a good idea to ask for everyone to vote even if they have absolutely no idea what they’re voting for? Arizona tried that a few years back if I remember correctly: they offered a monetary reward for anyone that voted. Sure, you get a large increase in turnout, but that doesn’t mean anyone has any idea what they’re voting for; they just want the hundred bucks. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to encourage education on the topics at issue rather than just hoping people go and cast their voice in favor of a cause they aren’t aware of the implications of?
*affects
I’m voting tomorrow!
Geez. If we could get 59% in the US I’d jump for joy.
But yes, go vote.
Already voted 8)
Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll…. The US has even less than that consistently and look at where we are on the world stage. If even less people voted in canada, it wouldn’t matter all that much because canada is pretty cool. I voted last election, though x]
Who you vote for obviously has an effect as well. Canada is currently regarded as an ecological criminal for the state of our piss poor attitude towards climate change and violators of human rights for the government’s refusal to acknowledge sanitary water as a right of people living on remote reserves. Other nations are campaigning to have Canada removed from the Common Wealth because they think the way we’re handling climate change is comparably reprehensible to South Africa’s racist Apartheid legislation. We’ve already lost the seat we held with the UN security council for more than 50 years, so I’d say our international reputation is on the decline.
I, for one, am not one to believe in climate change as such a threat as the nations and the general populace tend to believe, so go canada in that respect, from me. It’s also quite appalling that they would consider it as bad as the crow-law levels of legislation of south africa. That point would be, for me anyways, a fault of the Common Wealth and the rest of the world rather than that of Canada itself. As for the other issue, calling it a violation of human rights is also an extreme take on a somewhat minor issue.
However, I stand by my point that it’s generally not how many people vote, it’s who they vote for. If Canada had 10% voting percentage and voted in someone who turned out to be the messiah, himself, the world probably wouldn’t have too much problem with it.That said, America does have an image of the population taking democracy for granted, but it hasn’t really affected our image more than that. Also, in my humble opinion, if Canada was taken of the security council, by all means the US should have been taken off of it long ago.
The US doesn’t need to worry about that, they’re one of the permanent members with Veto powers along with China, France, Russia, and the UK.
I don’t know how refusing to fund programs bringing clean water to reserves could be seen as anything LESS than a violation of human rights. Clean drinking water has been globally recognized as a human right. The reserves are being denied that at the price of people getting sick and dying because the government refuses to get on board with what has already been recognized as international law. This isn’t a third world country where clean drinking water is hard to come by, If the government figures they have enough spare change to drop $9 billion on 65 fighter jets we don’t need, there’s no reason they can’t spend $7 billion to bring the reserves up to code. Instead, they sent Northern reserves a thousand slop pails to collect their sewage in and called it a day. For a country that spends as excessively on frivolities as Canada seems to, that is shamefully disgusting.
Indian reserves are treated as self-governing entities, kind of like municipalities. If they’re not building water filtration plants with the money (>10 billion/year last I heard) that the feds shovel them, that’s their choice. I certainly don’t feel we have an obligation to go in and spend even more money to make up for their poor decisions to 1) not construct needed facilities and 2) live on a goddamn reservation.
If you think it’s as easy as “do it yourself” or “move”, I’m going to assume you’ve never been to or known anyone from the sort of reserves that are in trouble. A lot of them are extremely isolated, accessible only by poorly maintained winter roads or air. Communication with outside communities is extremely bare bones (I heard that there was a commitment to putting cell phone service in all of the reserves in Canada, but then no more mention of it so I don’t know how that’s going). Even just getting the parts and labour necessary to build facilities TO the reserves is an enormous undertaking that requires a contractor who knows his chops, and the communities who are being proactive enough to put the money and effort into drafting proposals are being denied. Saying that building infrastructure from square one is as easy as “just doing it” is like saying a homeless person can just “get a job” whenever they want even if they don’t have ID, a phone number, a social Insurance number, and a permanent address. The last I heard there was a solid plan drafted up to fix this problem, giving priority to the 21 reserves in the most danger while budgeting enough to deal with all 90+ reserves with unclean drinking water, priced at 7 billion dollars. You can speculate all you want over “will the money be mis-spent” or “will they go over budget” or “will they maintain it”, but I think that kickstart is a better place to put a few billion dollars than into new fighter jets.
I don’t blame the government for losing the security seat at the UN; much of that was likely due to Canada standing by Israel, and I commend that.
Experts have outright said it’s because of Canada’s criminally incompetent handling of environmental issues and the government’s foreign policy. Israel may play some part in that (and I’m not even going to start that debate), but so does our altered stance on peacekeeping and foreign aid.
You think that’s is bad? Try America’s turnout. I’m not even sure why we HAVE elections for non-presidential offices anymore…. I think we get like 40% voting for lower/local offices across the nation. It’s p sad.
And we’re gonna teach other countries about democracy?! “Well, it’s great because you don’t have to fucking do it!”
I don’t think “are other doing countries worse than us” is a good measure of whether we’re doing a good job for ourselves or not.
Already voted on the early advance ballots.
Glad I did, too.
Not only does voting give you first rights to complaining about the current gov’t, but advance voting means you get first rights to complaining!
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET CITIZENSHIP IN CANADA
ABOUT HALF A BAKER’S DOZEN MINUS THE EQUALITY OF A BIRD IN THE HAND.
I’VE GOT JUST ENOUGH TIME
I’m almost excited for tomorr–later today. XD Since I don’t want to start a debate/flame war, I won’t say who I’m voting for but I will say that Conservatives are going down! >:D
Affect = verb; Effect = noun. I don’t know why I feel emotionally invested in this enough to post this…but there you go.
I think a lot of people haven’t voted, because of the state of Canadian politics these past few years. We get to choose between a liar, a weasel, a scumbag. Those labels can be used interchangeably on the leaders of the three major political parties. (I can’t speak for the Bloc Quebecois, since I’m in western Canada. Their existence barely registers.)
The real problem is– voting gets us nowhere. We’ll end with a Conservative minority again, which is generally bad for everyone, since no party has the pull to get things done.
If we DON’T vote, well… we’ll probably end up with a Conservative minority as well.
IMO, the Canadian political system needs new faces. All three parties need a Barack Obama. A dynamic, charismatic, fresh young leader to rally behind. Someone with big ideas, lofty goals, and messages of change — not necessarily change for the country, but a change in direction to usher in a golden age of Canadian politics.
Most importantly, we need leaders that stand for something other than slandering the opposition with insulting ads. I turn on the TV, and all I see is “Harper did that!” “Ignatieff is not here for you!” “Layton will form a coalition”… BLAH BLAH BLAH.
THAT is why Canadians don’t vote. Who do you chose when they all point fingers and call names? Nobody. No voting happens. Voter turnout hits record lows.
Please… please… please… Just tell us what you stand for and why. Help shine a positive light on those that are trying to make this country great.
/end rant.
Thanks for giving me a place to let that out. I will be there tomorrow, supporting the glimmer of hope that some good might come out of it.
So, the sam,e choice as any other democratic nation gets?
But hey, lots of people in this world don’t even have that.
I figure even if you hate everybody running, the least you can do is figure out who the lesser of 3(+) evils is. Or at least read up on the people running in your riding and vote according to which of those individuals you most want to see representing your regional interests in the House of Commons.
But that takes work.
OP! Everything you said, I agree with. I mean, I hardly know what each party runs for, all I know is that Layton likes to advertise before my Youtube videos telling me that people will say I don’t have a choice, Ignatiff just looks sleazy to me, and apparently Harper is taking on American views.
I just don’t know anymore. @_@ (I will vote today, regardless)
Hey, you can always spoil your vote; many people do this to protest the poor selection of candidates.
On one hand, it obviously doesn’t help the candidates available and only when many people cast invalid votes does it actually make a difference, but on the other, you don’t have to pick from the three imbeciles running. In certain countries (I believe Canada’s included), these invalid ballots are counted and if there are enough the election may be questioned.
It’s better than not voting at all.
Eh, I think the least you can do is get Harper out of office (though, we Canadians have a bad habit of keeping those we hate (boo, we don’t want David Miller, oops he was mayor again; boo, we don’t want Rob Ford, oops, he’s mayor again; boo, we don’t want Harper; oops he’s Prime Minister again)). Yeah, the choices suck, but as far as I understand it, we don’t need Harper again.
On a semi-related note: My mom keeps bothering me to vote, but frankly I just don’t care enough. As soon as I’m able to, I’m just going to pack up and go backpacking around the world, possibly settling down in the middle of nowhere, or become a librarian in a small town in Ireland or Scotland.
Oh, yes, one measly vote won’t change too much, unless it’s a definite tie. The only way you can influence it is if you gather everyone else who wasn’t going to vote up and agree that you’re going to vote for whom ever.
Er… not to rain on your parade, but most public and academic libraries require at least a Masters in Library Sciences before they’ll hire you as a librarian. I’m sure the system is different in Scotland, but they still want you to have a BA in English literature and a Post graduate in Librarian studies. Not trying to be a downer, just saying you’re probably going to need to squeeze in five or six years of university between backpacking and settling into a UK library.
And as always “I don’t care enough” is a shameful excuse. Go vote anyway.
Yeah, I know, I have done some research on becoming a librarian, and I’ll get everything I need eventually.
I know it is, but again, I just don’t care enough. I never have, and I never will. To use another shameful excuse as well, I’m also too lazy. I was never brought up with politics, I was never taught about politics, I was never interested, and it doesn’t have any immediate consequences to me, so therefore, it doesn’t matter to me.
This is a bit behind but politics have no immediate effect on you? How can someone wanting to become a librarian be so ignorant?
you only say you want 3 Obama because you are in Canada. If you were in the US you probably wouldn’t want a Barrack Obama let alone 3. Sure he’s young and all that stuff but he promised a lot of things and followed through on none of it. I’d be willing to bet that more than half democratic party would rather someone else run in 2012 than Obama. At least be glad you dont have a 2 party system. here in the US you have a choice between a terrible leader and a worse leader and you dont know which is one you voted for until after they are in office.
As much as people say it’s not two-party, it basically is.Of the main contenders there are left-leaning parties and right-leaning parties. With one right wing party and two main left ones, all you end up with is a unified conservative vote and a splintered left wing one.
I’m American, and that pretty much sums up the reasons why I don’t vote. I was thinking about applying to vote for a California governor since both sides seemed to avoiding insulting each other for a good long while, but when they finally got around to it, the insults were worse than usual…
Maybe they never reach the voting booth because of all the mooses, bears and other wilderness that’s on the way. Not every canadian is a bear-wrestling giant and Canada can’t wrestle all of em.
Why don’t people vote? Because it’s pointless. Modern democracy is a choice between a liar and an even bigger liar.
Unfortunately, while a lot of people realise that, few have the guts to pick up a gun and do what every nation did before that when they realized they’re being ruled by liars and more liars.
Correction: While a lot of people realize that, few are dumb enough to try assassinating important political figures and/or planning an underground militia to overthrow the government in today’s age of paranoid antiterrorism monitoring and insanely well-trained federal bodyguards.
Good luck trying to get people to exercise their rights on your side of the pond.
Have to say I’m quite sickened by how few people seem to care about the upcoming vote here in the UK. And depressed by how many football (soccer) fans seem to think the AV being voted upon is the Aston Villa club.
If it weren’t for the unmanly to do such a thing, I’d probably be emo by now.
GOD BLESS MACHISMO!
I was 18 in ’08 so I voted then, and will vote again!
If people say “I DON’T FOLLOW NO AUTHORITY SO I’M NOT VOTING”, I just tell them to go and spoil their ballot, or vote for a low-on-the-ladder party. Like the Pirate Party or something.
I can’t vote in Canada yet, haven’t gotten around to getting citizenship, but it certainly strikes me as even a protest vote means something here. Sure, the riding you live in may always go to the one party, but your vote counts towards that party’s funding next year. And a swing towards younger people voting, or people who exit poll as concerned about important future stuff will get the notice of politicians who are just waiting for us to tell them how to pander to us.
Anyway, it’s not the whole fiasco it was back in my home state. When I was away at college, I could take for granted that my vote wouldn’t even be counted as a mail-in once they had a statistical winner. But incumbents are still protected up here, and that sucks. Canadians seem to vote much more by party than by individual, which strikes me as really stupid. But still, your vote seems to count. That’s important.
That is because all party members vote together under our Party Whip system. Each individual has less influence than you might think.
Just FYI, everyone correcting the ‘affect vs. effect’ bit: STOP. Coela has it right, too. It’s not a matter of verb vs. noun, it’s a matter of British English vs. American English, and from my experience, a great many Canadians default to British English. Stop making us look even MORE like dicks, guys. :/
No. It is not British vs American vs Canadian. The affect/effect definition is the same for all three.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affect
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/effect
I’m from another country, and nah, we don’t care how many of you people vote.
Like, at all.
You might not care about how many of us vote, but who we elect certainly effects our international reputation. Canada is presently regarded worse internationally than it has in my lifetime. We’ve lost the seat we held for over 50 years on the UN security council and politicians from other countries are moving to have us kicked out of the Commonwealth for ecological crimes. I’m ashamed of what’s happening to my country and I’d like to think that if we could get more than barely over half the country to care about who’s in charge, we might see some things change.
Though something as vague as “other countries’ opinions of Canada” is admittedly hard to measure, I think our reputation is sailing higher than it has in decades. Other countries have seen us flex some muscle in Afghanistan rather than just sitting on the sidelines and telling others how it should be done. The current annoyance over our obstruction on climate will pass in time; I’m still not convinced that it isn’t all in our heads, anyway. We’re probably just shocked to be getting any kind of attention for a change.
I don’t know who is stupid enough to say we should be kicked out of the Commonwealth, but that is obviously a non-starter. Everyone else would get booted were they to be judged by the same standard. The magnitude of destruction that mankind is inflicting on this planet is so great that nobody’s hands are clean.
Finally, a slight correction: Canada has not held a seat on the Security Council for “over 50 years.” With the exception of the Permanent Five, all SC seats are held on a rotating basis for 2 years. The last time we held a seat was in 2000, and we have never been elected to a seat more frequently than every eight or ten years.
If you equate “sending peacekeepers to dispense humanitarian aid” to “telling people how it should be done” I don’t think we’re going to agree on anything military related.
In the case of the Security Council, yes, I am aware that it is a rotating group, and I have to apologize for misinterpreting my source material (it was not intentional), Rather it was the first time in 50 years we have campaigned and the other nations have not elected to vote us onto the council. I count myself in the camp who believes that is a sign of Canada losing respect on the world stage.
In my country voting is mandatory, you should try and pass that, It works pretty well
Which country do you live in?
I know Australia has fines imposed on people who skip voting, and it pushed their turnout from 47% to 95%.
Canadian politics follow a ‘first past the post system’ meaning that the party with the most votes in a riding wins, whether or not the majority voted for them. My area is heavily PC, and if hypothetically only the Conservative part and the NDP received votes. Then let’s say that the NDP was trailing by only a single vote… Conservatives take the riding, meaning that almost half of the people in the riding are not being represented by the part of their choice and the number of seats awarded to the conservatives is disproportionately larger than the number of people who actually voted for them. When you introduce more parties into the system, the chances of this happening (and the number of people not being represented by the party of their choice) potentially increase. I think that’s why the tactic of “splitting the vote” exists. It happened in my city during municipal elections – joke candidates (they were a joke) were introduced so that the main candidate weakened the number of votes his main competition would receive. People who didn’t want to vote for our existing mayor, instead of having only one other option, had several different candidates to choose from. So, while more than half of the people didn’t want the same mayor elected again, because they split their votes over several new-comers, our current mayor was able to be re-elected by winning through the first past the post system.
I’m not saying that it’s a good or bad system, since I haven’t studied these things. I’m just saying that this might account for the Canadian sense of National Apathy.
Yeah, I understand how the Canadian electoral system works, I still don’t think it’s an excuse to not vote. It’s frustrating, certainly, but proportional representation has it’s own set of problem, especially with a country this large and widespread. And with the way the parties are divided (one main right leaning party with the conservatives and three main left leaning parties between the Liberals, the NDP, and the Green party) the vote would still be splintered in the Conservative’s favour even if we completely did away with the riding system.
Still, apathy is a terrible, spoiled excuse not to put your vote in.
I definitely agree. I abhor voter apathy and had to listen to random people almost bragging about how they didn’t vote because they ‘got to sleep in five extra minutes’ or that it was too much of a bother. It was disgusting.
If you don’t mind my asking, what are the drawbacks of proportional representation? I haven’t studied it very much. I know that it would mean that population dense areas would be better represented in Parliament, but with the way our ridings are drawn that problem exists in first-past-the-post. (Not to mention that one of the disadvantages of first-past-the-post is the practice of re-drawing political ridings in order to skew the votes).
In a country with the vast size and low population density of Canada, proportional representation leads to large groups of people being marginalized – especially those from rural areas or smaller towns. A third of the country’s citizens live in the six largest metropolitan areas, which represents about 0.2% of the landmass.
That means that issues affecting the northern territories, the maritimes, Inuit and Native Canadians or people who have professions, needs and problems different from those felt in the cities (farmers, miners, lumberjacks, fishermen) would have almost no representation. They have little enough now, but the ideal behind fptp democracy is to tilt things at least somewhat in their favour, since they’d be utterly screwed otherwise. It doesn’t work well, but it’s what was intended.
A better solution that’s been proposed would be to have the Commons elected by representative popular vote across the country and have an elected Senate to provide geographical representation and considerations to bills going through Parliament. That way we wouldn’t have a PM who is despised by most of the country and nobody would be too badly marginalized.
Most of my statistical data came from here.
Yeah, that’s the biggest argument I’ve heard for FPTP, I’m not saying that the current system doesn’t seriously need an overhaul, because it really does, but coming from a Northern rural area I can identify with the problem. There is one seat in the house of parliament for all of Manitoba from the interlake region to the territories, but that’s still better than nobody. I don’t think a vote from one area should count for more than a vote from another, but I don’t think that the interests of people in a land mass bigger than all of Southern Ontario should be ignored because all of the people sitting in parliament live commuting distance from each other in Toronto most of the year.
The other argument I’ve heard against it are that the sheer number of names on the ballot with the number of parties our country has running overwhelms people and leads to a lot more “vote for the first person you see on the list” than you see when the only options are the people who can afford to run in your riding. And, while you might question how much of a valid concern it is, people are worried that joke parties or radical parties could gather enough votes to get a seat that way. Like, would having a Rhino party member in the House of Commons really do any good for the country or would it be a waste of a seat that would be better spent on someone there to make a serious contribution? Or what would people do if enough pocket radicals, teenage nihilists, and people who think it’s a joke put their votes in to give a seat to a Nazi party member who met the qualifacations to run?
Thanks Toad and Colasquid for the awesome information. There’s a lot to think and learn about.
I appreciate it very much.
Like a man once said : “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”
So yeah, we get to elect peoples that, we don’t really feel any empathie toward. But the only way to change things, is to get involved; at least by voting.
So yeah.. Vote.
As an American I would LOVE to get those kinds of numbers! I once voted in a municipal election (of a city of about 500,000) that had an 8% turnout.
If I got a 58% on a test, I wouldn’t feel better about myself because the guy sitting beside me got an 8%.
Democracy systematically produces bad outcomes, due to the basically zero private cost of voter ignorance and irrationality. The people who stay home on election day are the smart ones: why waste a trip down to the voting booth if you can’t affect the outcome?
Voter apathy isn’t so much a function of bad morals or something among the electorate, as a consequence of the political system. If your vote is not going to affect the outcome of the race, you don’t have a reason to cast it aside from, maybe, to indulge misguided feelings of enmity for the other side, or feelings of superiority over non-voters. The benefits are strictly confined to your own head.
Rather than exhort us to vote out of civic duty, I’d suggest that if you consider things more closely, it’s more like we have a civic duty not to vote. If we can drive voter participation down to the single digits, the system will be exposed for the sham it is, and maybe then we can get some actual freedom instead of calling the chance to play in a silly rigged game ‘freedom.’
You do more by spoiling your ballot than you do by not voting at all.
“If we can drive voter participation down to the single digits, the system will be exposed for the sham it is, and maybe then we can get some actual freedom instead of calling the chance to play in a silly rigged game ‘freedom.’”
So, what you’re saying is, if we all stop trying to make decisions for ourselves, then something magical will happen and we’ll get everything we want.
It’s hilarious that you think that lower turnout would be seen as anything other than a positive to those in favor of the status quo. Hell, the conservative party has started expessing an interest in getting *fewer* young people to vote. By sitting on your ass pretending you’re making a difference, you’re contributing to the worsening of the very situation you’re sitting there bitching about.
I’m quite happy to see that I’m not the only one utterly floored by the fact that Canada, one of the leading lights in the creation of the UNSec, was supplanted by Portugal. Has our international status really fallen that low, or is it merely a shadow of the effect created when a Prime Minister openly derides the validity, sovereignty, and rules of the UN?
That, and the $160 bn bailout package, our status as ecological pariahs, and… God, it’s depressing. All I want is a government that isn’t and never will be held in contempt of Parliament (Depressingly, another first in the history of Commonwealth nations)
Voted! Yay for Harper!
You have a better chance at dying in an automobile accident on the way to the polling place than actually having a meaningful impact on the outcome.
Don’t vote, it only encourages politicians.
If you want to make a stand, spoil the ballot; it’s an active statement of disapproval. Not voting just comes across as laziness and apathy.
Here’s the statistics.
To make your vote count in a first past the post election, here are the conditions that must be met:
1. If the number of plausible candidates is an even number, the total number of voters must be odd. If the number of plausible candidates is odd, the total number of voters must be even.
2. You must be the last person to cast a ballot.
3. Before you cast that final ballot, the vote count must be tied between all plausible candidates to cast that final vote.
Now, if there are two candidates and the number of voters is equal, the best you can hope your vote to do is create a tie. If you aren’t the final person to vote, the deciding vote can go to someone else. If the tally isn’t a perfect tie when you cast your final vote, who you vote for doesn’t matter because there will be a winner.
Let’s take Canada for instance because the numbers will come out far more favorably than the stats for the US. There are currently an estimated 34.4 million people living in Canada. Of that, only 72% can legally cast a vote, leading to a maximum voter population of 24.8 million. I’ll simplify this a bit for the Parliamentarian system. There are 308 members of the House of Commons, meaning a coalition of at least 155 members is necessary to “win” the government. I’ll assume that the other 153 are in a different coalition. Remember, by simplifying this, I’m underestimating your chances of actually casting a meaningful vote.
Now, 58% of the voting public showed up (more on the percentage later and why a 100% turnout doesn’t mean a thing), so 14.4 million people cast a vote.
First, to meet the odd number requirement there is a 1 in 2 chance. Not a big deal up front.
Second, to meet the last voter requirement, you must be living where the last poll closes. This means if you’re not in British Columbia or the Yukon territories, you automatically don’t have a meaningful vote because someone is capable of voting after you. This creates an odd situation where the furthest Western territories are actually meaningless in most elections but can be the final, deciding factor. Breaking down the population and using the 58% turnout, there’s a broad 1 in 7.2 chance to be in the group that can cast the deciding vote. We’re up to 1 in 14.4.
Next, you’ll have to be in the district that casts the final ballot for Parliament. Considering Parliament is an even number, this automatically makes every vote in Canada meaningless, but I’ll assume that one member voted in from some other place is an ornery sort and will automatically vote against the majority. There is a 1 in 137 chance that this will happen, moving it up to 1 in 1,972.8 chance that the vote will count.
This is the fun part. The average (taking a raw # Parliament/# of voters) number of votes cast for a race is 46,754. The odds of a perfect tie happening in the district between that number of voters happening are 1 in 1.1 billion.
The final tally is 1 in 2.17 trillion that a single person living in Western Canada will cast a vote that can actually decide an election.
For reference, 24 people more died on roads in Canada on average during elections. This equates to a 1 in 600,000 chance of dying in an auto accident related to the election. You are 3.62 million times more likely to die in the car than you would have in swinging an election with your vote.
You’ll have to note this has nothing to do with apathy. The way a democratic system is set up, it’s basically impossible to ever have a “majority will” on national governance. As noted above, roughly 38% of the population of Canada can’t legally vote yet has to live by the laws anyway. This leaves a maximum of 24.8 million voters who have any say in national governance. Only 6.2 million are necessary to win a majority government (308 members of House of Commons, 155 members for majority, 80,519 average potential voters per member, only 40,260 necessary to elect). I know its a parliamentary system and more candidates exist, meaning the 6.2 is an overstatement. This means that total national Canadian elections are dictated by the will of 18% of the Canadian public.
Democratic systems, specifically the first past the post types, are seriously broken. All it takes is 18% of a population to maintain total control over the other 82%. This is not the will of the people, or majority rules, but a decision by a select oligarchy. Additionally, by being adamant about voting to the point to campaign that other people do so as well, even with your 1 in 2.7 trillion chance of having an impact if you live in the farthest western territories, you’re effectively stating you agree with the system that can perpetuate a ruling class where 18% of the population can decide taxing, spending, and laws relating to the other 82%.
To have a legitimate majority will, of the 58% that bothered to show up, 120% of them would have to vote for the same candidate. Yes, that’s right, not only would all of the voters who arrived at the polls for the election have to vote for the same political party representative, 20% more people on top of that would have to also show up and vote for the same party representative. With 100% voter agreement, a minimum of 70% of all voting legal citizens will have to show up and vote for the exact same party to even get a majority will.
And that’s why I boycott the polling places. It’s nothing to do with apathy, it’s all to do with the fact that my vote literally has no purpose and I’ll be ruled over by the extreme majority. In any case, I at least take solace that the US can at least be ruled by a potential 36% of the population vs the 18% in Canada. We all cast a single vote for President, but the chances I’ll have a meaningful vote there is so astronomical I’d rather not waste the energy calculating it, not that it’ll have any meaning if I post it here.
First-past-the-post is a terrible representation of the majority will, and I knew when I first learned about it in elementary school. To be more fair, there should be vote proportion, wherein whatever percentage of the votes a party obtains, that is the percent of the influence they receive, however this has it own disadvantages since it eliminates any form of local representation at the federal level. This is why in a country as large as ours where population density is concentrated in small regions and very low elsewhere, we cannot have the interests of the dense, but small region put ahead of the rest of the country or allow it to exploit the less dense regions. So we break down the ridings based on a combination of population density and area to reduce each of the races to a smaller, local level.
I also have issue with people thinking that in a democratic process that Majority rule should be obtained. That is only true if you have a bi-party system, since the majority is also that which is most voted for. Under a poly-party system, the winner is that which is most agreed upon, NOT what is over 50%.
Example: My nine friends and I wish to go out for supper, but have not yet decided where to go. The only two places we know are open are a Chinese restaurant and an Italian restaurant. We decide to vote, the results are: 4 Chinese, 3 Italian, and 3 Indifferent. Though only 70% voted, since the majority of those voting chose Chinese, that is where we go. As we go to the restaurant, we notice that there is also an Thai place open, and due to some rumble of interest we decide to re-vote. The votes are now: 3 Chinese, 2 Thai, 4 Italian, and 1 Indifferent. Despite there being a marked preference in total votes for Asian cuisine, and a MAJORITY not voting for Italian, the choice with the most votes. Is that fair? I think so, even if I really wanted to eat some ginger beef.
As someone who tries to remain politically active as often as I can, I agree completely with this message. 58% voter turnout is barely half the population. You want better policies, do your part to place the right people in, voting matters, but its not just about the individual vote, its about coming together as a nation and showing the government what we want from it. We can’t do that with 58%. Finally my policy is, if you can’t vote for the gov’t because you’re too lazy or apathetic to get to polls, you don’t get to bitch when they introduce a policy you hate.
So will this week’s comic feature Canadian Guy? It’d be entirely too appropriate.
It would be, but I promised the people on twitter a month of Portal before I knew when the election was going to be.
Wait a second… So that means you can’t legitimately vote blank in an American/Canadian election? We can do that here, and that’s actually my party: the White Party :D “Because everyone sucks”.
Spoiling your vote can be seen just as “Oh this voter was stupid, we’ll just count one vote for everyone!” or something. Voting blank is effectively the best way to protest there is.
PS: By the way, I’m portuguese.
No, you can spoil your ballot here, most people who say they’re protesting the election by not voting are really just too lazy and apathetic to go down and make a real protest.
Are you allowed to write in a candidate? Because I totally intend to vote Elder Party next time our election cycle comes around…Cthulhu/Dagon 2012! Why vote for the lesser evil?
It counts as a spoiled ballot, but yeah, you can do that.
I’m only 17, but I would vote if I could. I’d be voting Conservative, although it’s not like the MP in my riding would need it (Gordon O’Connor is sitting at about 60% of the vote right now.)
Well that was a bit sobering an experience, and I don’t even drink.
Personally though it looks like a good but not great election.
I want to apologize(jokingly) for my riding completely avoiding the concept of strategic voting and possibly messing up a party leader hat trick. While it would’ve been funny as all hell, we all seemed to have missed the memo.
At this point it would be good to monologue about specific details and expectations about the election. However, the material needs work and may never work overall.
At least Bin Laden is dead…
Go Coelasquid! To see someone (on the internet, no less!) be politically well informed about their own country, have sound arguments, AND be able to back up those arguments with sources wins a great deal of respect from me! I already like the comic (and have for some time) and each comic update’s post has made me like the author to a degree, but this show of cogitation has only increased that by a great many times.
SO Coel… Have you heard the news? Conservatives have won–again–and with a majority government no less… I don’t know about you, but I’m crying. T_T
And we beat last election for second lowest voter turnout in the history of the country on top of that.
And what’s worse is that over 60% of voters voted against Harper but most of his minions got the seats anyhow. :/
We really need to start electing by choosing who do we want in the big chair, not giving a shit about the little guys who control our small patch of land.
BTW, do you think I could bunk with you down in LA til I get enough money to fly to NZ? I want to flee the country because of this. T_T
I voted!
All it did was provide me with an anxiety attack, and it didn’t actually make a lick of difference in the final outcome. I think next year I’ll go back to my whole ‘I don’t vote because I don’t pay attention to politics’ policy.
You want to make a stand, it’s still better to spoil the ballot than be completely apathetic.
I don’t want to live in this country after what happened.
HERE HERE! (Head for Australia/NZ. I hear they still have free, unmoderated internet.)
Haha, really?
I heard they have some of the most absurd bandwidth caps in the world there. Some as low as 20GB per month.
JayStrang is right. :P My family was on 20GB for years, only upgraded to 40GB two months ago. (That’s 200%! I don’t know what to do with all this internet!)
You’re being a teensy bit idealistic; not that I blame you of course, you can’t mistrust everything you hear, but it’s important to realise in the end every country is more or less the same. In NZ there’s a lot of complaint about welfare abuse. Australia had a fairly lackluster election, all the aussies I know (.. three) seemed to be disappointed. People talk about moving overseas. (To be fair that’s within my age group, aka teenagers worshipping bizzare glorifications.) If you want a good country, I suppose Scandinavia’s got that whole top-of-the-entire-world thing going on, but I wouldn’t expect paradise there either.
Basically talking about moving as if it’s the ideal solution comes off as slightly misinformed!!
I spoiled mine. I pretty much wrote “You all suck balls”.
the attitude in the comments here is such a disappointing reflection of voter mentality. i’m so bitterly disappointed with the results of the election (nice false majority, harper) and even moreso with the continued and willful ignorance about what this victory for the cons really means.
thank you for trying to spread awareness, coelasquid.
No can do. Not voting is a proud Canadian tradition.
It’s for the best. The majority of Canadians don’t care about politics. And if you don’t care about politics, then why vote? Because our vote matters? Sure! Let’s spam the polls with 40% uninformed, uneducated, or uninterested votes.
Besides. I’m lazy. And the game is on.
Or people could take the evening it does to familiarize themselves with what the parties stand for.
Now you’re just asking too much of me.
That would involve like, “reading”. That is just way too much effort.
I was told by my poli-sci friend that although provincially the spoiled ballots are counted, federally they are not. I read about a good idea that on of the fringe parties (libertarian?) had for this Their idea was to make an “I don’t like either option” box to check off, and report the results as a national statistic
Hm, interesting, is it because Federally they care most about the final outcome in each riding, rather than the individual votes?
Here in Finland we actually managed to get 70,3% voter turnout. Meaning that depressed finnish men from our deepest and darkest forests came and voted the True Finns, party against immigration, European Union, homosexuals and probably anything foreign and/or newer than Soviet Union’s collapse..
But I think we will manage. At least we are getting the best soap opera while the parties are trying to find any agreement to form the cabinet ^^
I voted for Jackie boy and while I’m happy the NDP did so well this time round i’m uber pissed that fucking Harper got his majority. Especially due to the fact that he got in on such a tiny percentage of the actual population.
The system in Canada is broken a riding in Toronto might have 100,000 people in it yet one out in northern Ontario might only be 20,000, Hurray! my vote counts for one 5th of someone else’s. Now take a look where the con’s won: the suburbs and the country (Saskatchewan doesn’t count) and then look at where they lost: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and the other major city’s. We need representation by population dammit! and we wouldn’t have this problem.
Oh and speaking as a member of Canada’s first nations, Thank you Coelasquid for recognizing the disgusting state of affairs on many of our reserves. To many people could care less about the people living in third world conditions within Canada’s borders
Yeah, that kind of thing means a lot to me, I was born and raised in Northern Manitoba so I was right in the thick of that sort of thing. The water treatment centre in my town went down when I was a teenager and we spent about a year and a half drinking lake water. And all things considered we had it pretty good, even if was opaque greenish-brown from all the muskeg we still had a competent plumbing hooked up in every house that would take the waste far enough away that it wasn’t mixing with what we were drinking. Actually, my parents used to live on one of the reserves with unsafe drinking water and my dad did end up getting really sick because of it at one point, so I can appreciate what the consequences of ignoring the problem are.
I know what you mean, I’m fortunate enough to be living in Toronto, but I’ve got family and friends dealing with this crap everyday.
I voted and my guys lost.
It hurts but I think I just grew up a bunch.
I didn’t vote this time around, nor last time, or any other time. I’m quite disappointed by this, due to the fact the election couldn’t wait 2 months for my 18th birthday.
Oh well, I’ll vote next time, in 4 years. I guess I’m happy we won’t be having another election in that time, we’ve had too many wasted ones as of late. I’m not sure who I’d have voted, though I have Conservative leanings.
Course, I’m western Canadian…
I have to say, after reading what you’ve put about the water treatment and such, I’m disappointed in our country, but regardless of this, I’m still proud of our fair country.
I voted for NDP knowing it was pointless considering I live in a conservative fortress of conservatism, but I had to try considering the NDP candidate said he’d work to prevent Usage based billing and I’ll head back in another 4-5 years and fail again.
The good news is that usage based billing is a somewhat popular issue.
Even though you won’t see all the parties openly agree to it, even Harper would get chewed out by his constituents over it.
As for some of the other issues, its gonna be interesting to see how some of the more liberal minded conservatives vote.
For those who feel their vote has absolutely no meaning whatsoever, please be aware that every ballot represents $2 toward the party that you voted for. It’s not much, but it is something.
I voted for the first time, and quickly learned that most of the other provinces don’t agree with mine ;___;
I voted. I made my opinions known. Who I voted for doesn’t matter. Not to anyone else other than me, at any rate. I will say, though, that all the complaints about how the electoral system works here are rather pointless, for one simple reason. People. People are, in general, stupid, ignorant, and apathetic. Why? Because they are more concerned with the important things. You could say that the government is important, but honestly, 90% of the decisions have next to no effect on the day to day experiences of the general public. The sun will rise, the sun will set. Most people will find a way to get themselves fed, and a place to pass out and sleep. They will work on surviving, and meeting their needs and wants. No matter which party is in power, that will be true. Until it stops being true, and the government starts making inroads on either restricting, or controlling the way people survive, they won’t really care. That’s the reality of it. The whole of the government is too monumental, too much like a mountain for people to grasp the entire thing. And let’s all agree on one thing. Any means of setting boundaries on people’s freedoms will be a bad one. There will always be people who find ways to use that infrastructure to their own ends. And over a period of time, those people will gravitate to the top, like the waste floating on top of a cesspool. If you look at history, the less strict the government, and society, the shorter the system lasts before reaching dissolution. The stricter, the longer. Of all the governmental systems, democracy, in any form, gives the best chance for people to be happy, and to enjoy that happiness. And on a final note, if you are going to complain about how things work, you’d better either be doing something to make them better. Otherwise you’re concentrating on the problem, and not the solution, which is just you screaming into the void. A waste of time and energy.
Attention all North American Colonials! It’s not too late, you can still renounce your past heresies, and be re-accepted back into the great Imperial fold. Just abandon your false independence, and swear eternal loyalty to your rightful monarch, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second!
ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!
One voter might or might not change things.
spreading the word and actively doing it with gathering a HUGE network sure works.
whenever you like it or not, obamas internet campaign worked wonders. that said facebook and twitter voting for different in mass helps alot for whatever party.
One thing though coelasquid, is there any country that has 80% or even 90% voting in the population? we have to take in mind the young people who cant vote, and the old people who are to old to go to vote or to sick/ill to vote.
When people put together voting statistics it’s what percentage of the eligible voters turnout, not what percent of the total population. Countries like Australia impose a fine for not voting, and their voter turnout is upwards of 90%.