The residents in St. Albert have had a lot of decisions to make this year. Since the provincial election was called on April 7, there has only been one election-free month – July, if you are asking. And in that time, we have listened to and read about eight municipal byelection candidates, 11 provincial candidates, 11 federal candidates, at least nine party leaders and dozens upon dozens of issues and promises.
So without logging on to the Google encyclopedia, name the winners in both the provincial and municipal votes. Now write down who came in second. Why did you pick one over the other? Can’t remember? That’s not surprising, because according to social scientists who study this kind of thing, you may be suffering a condition known as voter fatigue. But forgetting the details of past elections may not be extremely important, primarily since there is little anyone can do about the outcomes now, but if this syndrome affects the way you vote in the federal election in a couple of weeks, it could have far more serious consequences.
Voter fatigue is generally defined as the apathy that the electorate can experience under certain circumstances, one of which could be (in exceptional circumstances) that they are required to vote too often, or that they feel disengaged. U.S. studies have shown that can lead to a lack of interest, a feeling of inconvenience or the sense that a vote doesn’t matter. Nothing could be further from productive in a healthy democracy.
Still, in the case of the current federal election in St. Albert, it is not too far fetched to make the argument that some people may have had already enough of the constant onslaught of political information. They have likely read way too many blogs and newspaper columns or watched too many talking heads on TV.
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the election Aug. 2, he kicked off the longest campaign in modern Canadian history, measuring 78 days to Oct. 19. Making that call was a risky business. It gave voters an awful lot of time to compare their candidates and actually study and debate the issues if they so chose. It also gave us plenty of time to warm up to or distance themselves from individual personalities. Being a local politician or the leader of a country is more than being up on government policy and current affairs. The best politicians are just that – people who know how to sell themselves in order to reach sensible compromise or consensus in the face of opposition. In plain English, they have to be likeable or convey a sense of trust. Charisma likely plays a large role in the way people vote as they do, but it alone is no reason to mark a box on the ballot. We must all shake off any ennui these months of political sloganeering may have created to look at the important issues as they will actually affect the Canada we want to live in.
There is now a little more than two weeks to the end of the election marathon of 2015. We have heard the rhetoric, judged the tactics, and, if they’ve been working hard enough, gained a sense of the actual people we may put in government. If there is a time to shrug off the effects of voter fatigue it is now. Apathy is no way to steer the future.
