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Voter apathy reaches new heights while sinking to a new low
Who needs political views when a website can choose them for you?

By Jacey Gibb

“Politics is too boring!” “All the parties
are corrupt so what’s the point in even
voting?” “Election day was today? Oh
man, I completely forgot.”

The dialogue you hear from voters
whenever an election rolls around is
always full of the same groans and
complaints you listened to the last time
the polls requested our attendance. It
is tragic how few people choose to
exercise their wonderful right to vote
but something that concerns me even
more was the introduction this year of
an election cheat sheet from the CBC
website which allowed people to answer
a few simple questions on the election’s
major issues in order to tell them who
to vote for. That’s right; the democratic
process has now been boiled down into
a thirty question survey that you can
complete in less than five minutes. Find
politics too boring to actually follow?
There’s an app for that!

“I suppose I understand the theory
behind this creation, to a certain extent.
Since the voter turnout was (actually up
from last time, but still) only just above

 

sixty percent, it seems our country is
trying to eliminate any possible reasons
that might be driving people away from
the polls, including fear of the unknown.
Election campaigns are more repetitive
and painful than an episode of Two and
a Half Men, and some people’s reactions

’ (often to both) are to just tune it out

until the season comes to a close. You’re
not going to pay attention to every time
Stephen Harper hugs an orphan or any of
those other photo opportunity goldmines,
so it becomes difficult to filter out the
filler from the important issues at hand.

One of my main problems with the
Conservatives being in power is that yes,
they do get more votes than any of the
other parties, but when voter turnout is as
low as it is, the numbers don’t act as a fair
representation of the majority of views in
Canada.

I’m not going to end this article
with an awe inspiring speech about how
precious democracy is that will absolutely
revolutionize the way you see freedom
as we know it, but I will say this: please
start caring. Do some research, give the
news section of the paper a read through
before flipping to the back for the Sudoku,

or at least learn the names of the leaders
running! Then this time four years from
now, when it comes time for Election
Day, make that patriotic journey to the
polls and help decide the future of our
country. I promise Dancing with the

 

Stars will still be on your DVR when
you get home and then you can go back
to complaining about the government
like the rest of us. Only this time, you’re
allowed to complain because you voted.

 

 

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