You hear people say it during EVERY election, "if you don't bother to vote, don't bother to complain." This is a phrase that has bothered me for many years now, as it basically means that in order to have an opinion, you have to vote for the lesser stooge on your ballot. We just recently had a municipal election, and although voter turnout was the highest it's been since the city was amalgamated in 1997, there was still a large portion of the population that didn't vote; and the voter turnout was much worse across other parts of the GTA. I think a large portion of the reason people don't vote is twofold. Firstly, I think most people don't vote due to apathy over their choices. Secondly, I think there are too many candidates to choose from - especially in municipal elections where basically anybody can run.
Let me first discuss the number of candidates to choose from. You may not have known it before you voted - and if you didn't vote, you probably don't know it at all - but there were 65 people running for mayor of Toronto..... SIXTY GODDAMN FIVE! Of course, the majority of voters only knew 3 people - John Tory, Doug Ford, and Olivia Chow; some people probably knew about Ari Goldkind, but the majority of people did not. Let's be realistic; it's great to talk about how awesome democracy is, and that it gives anybody a chance to win, but unless you're a big name you don't have a shot of winning. I'm all for cutting the list down to 5 candidates maximum.
Here's what I propose when it comes to the also ran candidates: when you go to register, you must also have a list of at least 2500 signatures from registered voters saying they would be willing to vote for you if you were on the ballot. The only candidate that would have met that requirement besides the big 3, would have been Ari Goldkind - who received 3912 votes. Of the 980,177 votes cast during the election, only 27,913 (2.8%) went to also ran candidates. Obviously that number isn't big enough to have given Ford or Chow a better chance to win - as they trailed Tory by 64,000 and 168,000 respectively - but they certainly could have helped Mr. Goldkind out if he had have been the only other person on the ballot. I think it's awesome to have people outside of City Hall running for Mayor, they potentially bring new great ideas to the table; but when you allow too many people to run, things become convoluted, and legitimate fourth and fifth spot politicians have to fight extra hard to get their messages across. Again, I say bring in provisions to cut down the number of people allowed to run so that you have 4 or 5 choices tops; and allow ALL 4 or 5 of those people to take part in the mayoral debates so that everybody's platform can be heard, not just the big names.
Now despite the fact that so many people are actually allowed to run in the election, I think a large number of people chose not to vote due to apathy; like i said previously, I doubt most people even knew that there were 65 candidates for Mayor. Voter turnout in Toronto this time around was the highest it's been in a while, with approximately 60% of registered voters going out and voting. Having said that, however, that means that 40% of registered voters (or roughly 653,000 people) chose not to vote. Now according to many out there, that means that 653,000 Torontonians - myself included - have to shut up and take the government we're given just because we didn't vote. Essentially we're being told that it doesn't matter if we think that none of the candidates represented ours - or the city's - best interest, just go out and vote for the sake of voting. Well I'm sorry, but if my voting choices are 3 monkeys throwing feces at each other or 62 spot fillers on a ballot, i would just rather not vote. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed to discuss what I like or dislike about the city government for the next 4 years? I don't believe that's fair to myself or the other 40% of people in the city who are fed up with a real lack of choice and belief in our politicians. And if 40% of Torontonians have to shut up, what about the rest of the GTA?
Although Toronto saw a decent voter turnout in this election, the same cannot be said for the rest of the GTA. According to a Toronto Star article, voter turn out across the GTA was pathetic! In Mississauga, only 36% of registered voters bothered to go out to the polls; that number is also the same for Brampton. In Vaughn only 30% turned out for their municipal election. Finally, Oshawa saw just a 26% voter turnout rate for their election. So, keeping in mind the saying "if you don't bother to vote, don't bother to complain" let's break this down.
Toronto - 40% of us need to shut up with our complaints.
Mississauga and Brampton - 64% of their populations need to shut the hell up and not discuss politics for the next 4 years because they didn't vote.
Vaughn - 70% of their population doesn't have the right to complain for the next 4 years.
Oshawa - a whopping 74% of it's population shouldn't get a say in what happens with that city because they didn't like their choices and didn't vote.
That is an awful lot of people who shouldn't be allowed to voice their complaints and concerns for the next 4 years simply because they didn't like any of the choices put in front of them. I personally wonder how different voter turnout would have been across the board if voters could legally abstain their votes like they did in this past Spring's provincial election. This past provincial election there was a movement to inform Ontario voters of their right to legally go to the voting polls and decline their ballot without spoiling it. While the number of declined ballots in past provincial elections had been between 2500 to 5000, this year, with more people informed, the number of legally declined ballots jumped to almost 31,400! As far as I'm aware, the right to legally decline your ballots is only available in a few provinces, and therefore can only be done during those provinces respective provincial elections; it cannot be done in federal or municipal elections, as far as I'm aware. I believe that if this were to change, so that federal and municipal elections were included, you would see a higher voter turnout with a higher number of declined ballots. Give me the right to legally express my displeasure with the choices I'm given, and I'll gladly go to the polls to do so. And I think a lot of other people feel the same way.
So I kindly ask those of you out there who think people who don't vote also don't have a right to complain, please stop this thought process. It's not that those of us who don't vote don't want to, it's just that we don't want to choose from a menu with nothing but crap on it. Allow us to voice our displeasure by giving us the right to decline our vote like we can in a provincial election, and I believe more non-voters will go out to the polls.
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