Repetitions of “Did you vote yet?” from students representing political parties on campus were palpable on provincial election day Oct. 6.
Whether it was the flocks of red, blue and orange attire, or the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA)’s posters comparing political parties’ platforms, a clear message was being sent to the student body: exercise your democratic right to vote. And vote I did.
I walked into Fenn Lounge in Residence Commons, provided proof of residence and filled out my ballot — simple enough . . . because I live on residence. Turns out you had to be living on campus to vote at the campus polling station.
I watched numerous students get turned away and told to go to the next closest polling station at Brewer Park.
Elections Canada mandates that polling stations for advance polling are open to anyone in the riding where the polling station is located. On election day, though, each voter is only able to vote at their assigned polling station, which is determined by their address.
For students, this becomes problematic. While living away from home, as is the case for me and most of my friends, your permanent address is likely your parents’ address. As a result, many students wouldn’t have received a voter card. This means they would have been forced to check the Elections Ontario website to confirm their assigned polling station.
Let’s be honest — a student isn’t going to make this much effort. If they’re on campus, they’re going to be inclined to vote on campus. In fact, it almost seemed like CUSA was telling them to. I saw posters around campus advertising an election day barbecue taking place in the residence quad to promote voting.
If the act of voting is being promoted on campus, students are likely to assume they’ll have the opportunity to vote on campus come election day — especially when they see a polling station set up in one of the residence buildings. If CUSA is going to launch an advertising campaign, they should inform students. But they made no mention of any restrictions.
It’s not like Brewer Park is far. From the athletics building, it’s probably a two-minute walk. But why make the process more complicated than it needs to be? What valid reason is there for having to turn away students, just because they don’t live in residence? The added administrative work necessary to be able to accommodate students located outside of their assigned polling zone certainly can’t take that much extra legwork.
Out of a student population of over 20,000, only about 3,000 had the opportunity to vote on campus. Granted, not even close to all the students at Carleton live in the Ottawa Centre riding where the university is located, but I’m sure a significant enough number do.
It may not seem like a big deal to check online and walk a few more minutes, but when voter apathy among students is acknowledged as being significantly lower than the provincial or federal average, this is a problem.
If students are less inclined to cast their ballots in the first place, those on the fence about voting certainly aren’t going to make the extra effort to go anywhere off campus.
This is the sad reality. We live in a province and country where young people aren’t voting. According to a Library of Parliament report, voter turnout amongst people aged 18 to 24 was 20 per cent below the national average in the 2008 federal election. If this is such a big problem, Elections Canada should be going out of its way to make sure students are voting, not discouraging them.
Regardless of the justification for the decision, it doesn’t suffice. How hard could it have been to accommodate those students living in the Ottawa Centre riding?
Would the riding’s outcome have differed had more students not been turned away? Maybe not. But the principle still stands. If we want a more politically engaged society of politically engaged citizens, more needs to be done from the ground up, and loosening election day restrictions for students would be a good place to start.
— Arik Ligeti,
third-year journalism
