EYE ON A CRAZY PLANET
Sunday, April 20, 2014
The Right Not To Vote
There are a few times that I didn't vote because there wasn't anyone worth casting a ballot for. That's an important right. Ezra Levant raises the critical point that it's not necessarily good for democracy to pressure people who are ignorant of issues and uninterested in voting to decide how the country should be governed.
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No one is saying people don't have a right not to vote but educating people about their right to vote and how to exercise it (ie civics) does not interfere with that right. What we have now is a government which actually wants fewer people to vote. Curtailing voter information programs is a soft form of voter suppression.
Assuming schools were doing their jobs, they would be teaching about bow the democratic process works in this country. There are incessant ads by candidates before elections, which make it clear they are coming. What Elections Canada is clearly doing is a biased appeal to certain types of votes.
If Elections Canada needs to run an ad about an upcoming election, it should have the date of the election and the hours during which voting can occur and nothing more.
Targeting specific demographics and showing specific, targeted issues is a form of politicized campaigning and Elections Canada should have absolutely no role in that.
There is nothing resembling "soft voter suppression" happening in this country at the federal level. Even the "robocalls" nonsense, that was perpetrated by some rogue idiots, wasn't responsible for preventing a single vote being cast.
The current government may well do better because of low voter turnout, since it is an indication of general satisfaction. But there is no effort to prevent voters from voting. However, the opposition parties, particularly the current Liberals, benefit from stupid, low-information voters and targeting them is not why Elections Canada was created.
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