A sample voter card being used to demonstrate the voting process before the use of a new electronic tabulator during a press conference at the Elections BC office in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, September 25, 2024.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito
October 22, 2024 - 6:00 AM
More British Columbians voted in this past weekend’s provincial election than any other in history, but the voter turnout was still lower than what it used to be.
While the final vote is still being counted, it is an undeniably close race between the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives. The BC NDP are leading in 46 ridings, with BC Conservatives ahead in 45, and the BC Greens are set to win two ridings.
There were more than 2 million votes cast, which translates to a 57 per cent voter turnout, according to Elections BC.
The electoral districts throughout the Okanagan and in Kamloops hovered around the provincial average for turnout, according to the number of voters registered by Oct. 17 compared to the number of votes cast in the initial count. Kelowna Centre had a lower turnout around 55 per cent, and Kamloops-North Thompson had a higher turnout around 61 per cent.
Dr. Hamish Telford, associate professor of political science at the University of Fraser Valley, said experts have been trying to increase voter turnout for 30 years, and the record number of votes cast is because there are simply more British Columbians than ever before.
“It's par for the course for the last couple of decades, but well below what it used to be. So, in my view, I still think that we have a voter turnout problem. And you would have thought that in an election this important and this close, more people would have voted,” Telford said.
The provincial election had some more excitement than usual with the BC Conservatives making a huge comeback relative to the 2020 election, and BC United suspending its campaign, but it didn’t translate to people going to the polls in droves.
Telford said the disinterest could be, in part, because of drab leadership.
“None of the major leaders were particularly charismatic. I don't think they really captured people's attention. They were hardly Obama-esque in their oratory,” Telford said. “Maybe the closeness of the election was mitigated by the boringness of the leaders. You know, there were important issues. But again, if people were not inspired by the leaders, perhaps they didn't sort of get hooked on any particular issues.”
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It may seem like 57 per cent is a low voter turnout for such a consequential election, but Telford said it’s pretty much impossible to get everyone to do anything.
“I can't think of anything else that 60 per cent of the population does or enjoys. Sixty per cent of the population doesn't even watch hockey in Canada. And so maybe we shouldn't expect more,” he said.
One way to increase voter turnout would be through compulsory voting. In Australia people can be fined up to $75 dollars for failing to vote, according to the Western Australian Electoral Commission.
Telford said compulsory voting might get more people to the polls, but it would likely be incredibly unpopular and doesn’t necessarily mean more people would take an election seriously.
“We've just come through a pandemic, and we see how much people resent having their freedoms restricted in any particular way,” he said. “People often vote for mistaken reasons or not particularly logical reasons... people might just end up going out and voting randomly.”
Telford said there isn’t much that can be done about low voter turnout, even alternate voting methods like mail-in ballots have little effect.
“I've been quite pessimistic about what we could do about it. All I can say is that it's incredibly important that we do vote,” Telford said. “So much of our lives is dependent on politics. We have a lot at stake here. And as we just saw in this very close election, every vote matters.”
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