Image by clang boom steam via Flickr
Rick Mercer has been suggesting youth take a date to the federal election today. His earlier rant, at the beginning of the campaign, sparked vote mobs on campuses across the country. His words carry the weight of research.
Being eighteen-years-old is about the worst time to introduce youth to voting, according to a University doctoral student I met recently at a farewell reception for the now-defunct Centre for Urban Health Initiatives. Likely to be at a more tumultuous time of their lives, living in a new community, eighteen-year-olds are less likely to vote than the former age-of-majority, twenty-one-year olds. And when we don’t vote, she explained to us gathered around, it becomes a habit.
So the call to drop the voting age to sixteen makes a lot of sense. Youth, normally still living in familiar surroundings, would make their first foray into voting on more stable ground.
In fact, our grad student’s own research focuses levels of voting among immigrants. She is finding that those without the culture and habit of voting are less likely to exercise their franchise when they come to Canada.
“If I were king of the world,” she said, “I would make voting at least once a pre-requisite for citizenship.” Her doctoral work, not yet complete, gives weight to calls to allow city residents, despite their citizenship status, to vote in municipal elections.
Related Articles
- Youth vote mobs to storm B.C. campuses this week (theprovince.com)
- Campus vote mob heeds Rick Mercers call to arms (theglobeandmail.com)
- Municipal voting rights for non-citizens (the Mowat Centre)
- “The Municipal Franchise and Social Inclusion in Toronto: Policy and Practice.” Toronto: Community Social Planning Council of Toronto and Inclusive Cities Canada, 2006.
- Electoral Insight, Dec. 2006 (Elections Canada)
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