More than 70,000 people voted at special voting stations set up at universities, Aboriginal friendship centres, and YMCAs across the country from Oct. 5-8.
According to statistics published on the Elections Canada website, 70,231 electors voted in the four days special voting stations were set up as part of a pilot project providing students and Aboriginal people additional opportunities to vote.
A total of 38 campuses had stations set up, including Carleton University and the University of Ottawa.
Elections Canada also reported 18,751 people voted in advance polls in Ottawa Centre, the riding with the highest turnout for this election. More than 3.6 million people voted in advance polls across the country, up from 2.1 million in 2011.
More than 850,000 voted in advance polls on Oct. 9 and 1.2 million on Thanksgiving Monday, which were the two busiest days for advance polling ever.
Douglas Kutt, a second-year political science student at Carleton, said he chose to vote in the special polls because it was most convenient for him as a student living on residence.
“There are thousands of students who are voting age and live on residence at Carleton and all of us shouldn’t have to rely on public transit to vote,” he said.
Bill Cross, a political science professor at Carleton, said he thought the program was a great way for Elections Canada to engage young voters.
“When you hear that so many young people took advantage of it then that’s just confirmation that people want to vote and they’re willing to vote if it’s not made too difficult and if the opportunity presents itself,” Cross said.
Cross said he suspects half those voters would not have voted if there had not been a voting station on campus.
“A lot of those people, particularly the ones who weren’t voting in their home constituency . . . but were able to vote at Carleton, those people probably wouldn’t have voted because it’s too difficult to vote from away in the past,” he said.
Olivia Stavretis, a second-year criminology student at Carleton, said she chose to vote because she was able to vote in her home riding while away from home.
“Changing all my registration information for my new Ottawa address would have just been really tedious,” she said.
Cross said if students were going to vote away from home in the past, typically they would have had to send in a mail ballot which had an early submission deadline.
“With an election in the fall, students would have to do it as soon as they’re arriving on campus and that’s not number one on their list of priorities,” he said.
Cross said there’s no reason voting should be difficult in 2015 with modern technology.
“We haven’t gotten there yet in terms of having Internet voting . . . but being able to vote from wherever you are in the country but have it count in your home constituency seems like a good step forward,” he said.
Elections Canada should continue to experiment to make voting appealing to Canadians, Cross added.
“There’s something quaint about showing up at your local school or local church and standing in line and voting,” he said. “But it’s probably also old-fashioned, and I’m not sure that it appeals to younger generations.”
