Thesis - Final Draft · Title: Thesis - Final Draft Author: Alex Masse Created Date: 5/3/2011...

Undergraduate Thesis:

Electoral Administration and the Student Vote*

By

Alex Massé

Submitted to

Dr. Harold Jansen (Supervisor)

Dr. Peter McCormick (Second Reader)

Abstract This paper examines the decline in Canada’s voter turnout rates with a particular focus on youth and, more specifically, post-‐secondary students. It also examines the literature on electoral administration and turnout, which strongly suggests that administrative reform can be used to increase participation rates. A critical comparison of electoral administration in Canada and its provinces reveals a number of reforms that could be undertaken in order to increase student participation in provincial and national elections.

* My interest in this topic was spurred by my work with the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS), who lobbied the Government of Alberta on student issues, including electoral administration. This paper has benefitted from the research of Duncan Wojtaszek, Executive Director of CAUS.

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Introduction

I’m not saying that any politician would ever come out and say they don’t care about the student vote. When they’re pushed, they can all talk about education reform and crushing debt until the cows come home. But at the ten-‐minute mark, they all do the same thing: they stop. They lean in like they’re telling you some sort of secret and they say “you know, it’s a real shame, but students in this country, they just don’t vote,” which believe me is code for “we don’t care about students, we never have, we never will”… You’re the ones that deliver the lawn signs, but past that, you could be on fire for all they care. (Rick Mercer, 2008)

Canada’s declining rate of voter turnout has become a subject of widespread

concern. Participation in national elections has been in steady decline since 1988,

with only 58.8% of registered voters turning out in 2008. And although there is

some variation at the provincial level, the general pattern is consistent: less

Canadians are engaging in the electoral process. The non-‐participation of younger

electors appears to be at the root of turnout decline. That decline is likely to

continue as older Canadians, who are most likely to vote, are replaced by younger

generations of non-‐voters. This paper will explore the phenomenon of turnout

decline with a particular focus on Canadian youth. While some research attempts to

target the root causes of turnout decline, this paper will focus instead on how

changes to electoral administration can be used to stem the tide of non-‐

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participation. More specifically, I argue that electoral administration can be

reformed to accommodate the particular circumstances of a large subset of newly

eligible voters: post-‐secondary students. A comparative analysis of select aspects of

electoral administration reveals a number of reforms that could be used to improve

electoral administration. By targeting students, Canada’s national and provincial

governments can mitigate turnout decline and transform a large number of young

Canadians from habitual non-‐voters to active participants in electoral democracy.

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Chapter 1 – A Critical Framework Before embarking on a critical evaluation of electoral administration (EA,) it seems

appropriate to address the ‘ought’ question. Namely, what are the principles that an

administrative regime ought to adhere to? The approach adopted here has been

inspired to some degree by the Canadian Democratic Audit series; the authors of

that series of books performed critical, qualitative analyses of various democratic

institutions by examining the extent to which those institutions adhered to a set of

abstract principles: public participation, inclusiveness and responsiveness (Cross,

2004: viii). This paper takes a similar approach; it begins by establishing a set of

guiding principles that are appropriate to the much narrower subject of electoral

administration and the student vote. Those principles will then be used as the

framework for a comparative evaluation of some current policies.

In order to build that framework, it is necessary to acknowledge some of the

foundational assumptions that have guided this paper. The first (and perhaps the

foremost) is that a high rate electoral participation is essential to the health of a

democratic system. The upshot of that assumption is that the decline in Canada’s

voter turnout rate is a serious problem that merits the attention of researchers and

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policymakers. A related assumption (and one that will find some empirical backing

in the next chapter) is that the inclusion of youth into the electoral process is crucial

to securing a healthy rate of voter participation.

These are likely to be fairly uncontroversial assumptions. Concern about turnout

decline is common among Canadian academics who study political behaviour. For

example, in their audit of democratic citizenship, Gidengil, Blais, Nevitte and

Nadeau, four of Canada’s most prominent scholars of political behaviour, remark

that “if citizens cannot be bothered to exercise this most basic of democratic rights,

there is surely cause for concern” (2004: 103). In another study, the same authors

write that “the decline in turnout since the 1988 election does not bode well for the

country’s democratic health” (Blais et al., 2002: 60). “The turnout decline, its causes

and consequences, and its possible reversal, will remain a subject of the highest

importance,” write Pammett and LeDuc (2006: 314-‐25). There is also concern

within the academic community about the non-‐participation of youth, in particular.

Pammett and Leduc warn that “a syndrome of non-‐participation is in danger of

developing among Canadian youth” (2006: 314). Milner writes that trends in youth

voter turnout are “highly worrisome” (2005: 2).

Concern about turnout is not limited to academia. In their 2008 Strategic Plan,

Elections Canada expresses concern that the legitimacy of Canada’s democracy

could be hampered by turnout decline (Canada, 2008a). Elections Canada also

acknowledges the need to engage youth in particular: “We need to look at ways of

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engaging youth and strengthening their connection with the electoral process”

(Canada, 2008a: 10). In Canada, concern about political apathy among youth – and

about youth voter turnout in particular – has also spawned at least one interest

group: Apathy is Boring. Increased youth voter turnout is listed as the first of their

three stated goals, which also include engaging youth in their communities and

prompting dialogue between youth and elected officials (Apathy is Boring, 2011).

Still, the existence of a broad consensus by no means proves that higher turnout is

something to strive for. Skeptics of the value of voter turnout might argue that there

are other forms of civic engagement, and that declining voter turnout does not

necessarily imply a decline in political participation overall. As Nevitte correctly

points out, “voting is the most visible and widespread form of conventional political

participation, but it is also only one form of political participation. Furthermore, it is

far from clear that voting is the most effective way for citizens to register their

preferences and to make demands on the political system” (1996: 76). Nevitte also

notes that Canadians demonstrate high levels of political protest activity and are

receptive to the idea of protest (1996: 77). O’Neill, after reviewing rates of

participation in “non-‐traditional” avenues of political behaviour, concluded that

“Young Canadians engage in these activities at levels that rival and in some cases

exceed those of older Canadians” (2007: 20). Could it be that young Canadians are

simply expressing their political preferences by other means?

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Available evidence suggests that the young Canadians to whom turnout decline has

been attributed are not the ones who are turning to alternate forms of civic

engagement (Blais et al., 2002: 59). In their review of political participation, Gidengil

et al. noted that “newer forms of political engagement are not so much supplanting

more traditional forms as providing additional avenues of expression” for a core of

educated citizens who are already engaged in conventional political activity (2004,

142). In light of that finding, young Canadians’ healthy rate of non-‐traditional

political activity does little to ease concerns about their low rates of electoral

participation.

Even so, the value of voter participation is not entirely self-‐evident. In one oft-‐cited

study on the importance of voter participation, Arend Lijphart calls low voter

turnout “a serious democratic problem” (1997: 1). According to Lijphart, voter

turnout is systematically biased in favour of wealthier and better-‐educated citizens,

and that disparity in turnout leads to a disparity in representation (1997: 1).

Lijphart writes that “who votes, and who doesn't, has important consequences for

who gets elected and for the content of public policies” (1997: 4). He argues in

particular that inequality in voter turnout is systematically biased against

candidates on the left side of the political spectrum (1997: 4-‐5). And, as Martinez

and Gill have noted, “the conventional wisdom believed by most casual observers”

reflects Lijphart’s prediction that “parties of the left should benefit from higher

levels of turnout and parties of the right should pray for rain on election day”

(Martinez and Gill, 2006: 2).

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Evidence from Canada does suggest some important socio-‐demographic differences

between voters and non-‐voters, which might be expected to correspond to

differences in partisan preference. For example, voter turnout is positively

correlated to both income and education (Blais et al., 2004). But unlike Lijphart,

recent Canadian studies do not suggest a major partisan bias in turnout. Martinez

and Gill (2006), who analyzed the results of the Canadian general election of 1997,

found that there was some partisan bias in turnout, but that bias was relatively

modest and varied by region. Partisan bias was even less evident in a subsequent

publication by Rubenson et al., who wrote that they “found scant evidence for the

contention that voters and abstainers hold significantly different views or that

voters are less likely to hold progressive views on issues” (2007: 595). Rubenson et

al. predicted that the effect of voter turnout on electoral outcomes would be

marginal and would have little effect on the formation of governments (2007: 596).

This finding is echoed by research from the United States: Rosenstone and

Wolfinger (1978) and Mitchell and Wlezien (1995) both found that an increase in

turnout resulting from more liberal registration procedures would have little impact

on the partisan composition of the electorate.

So why worry? If, as Rubenson et al. suggest, the immediate effect of voter turnout

on electoral outcomes is minimal, why should we value higher participation rates at

all? Some potential causes for concern are cogently articulated by Herman Bakvis,

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who edited a volume on voter turnout for the Royal Commission on Electoral

Reform and Party Finance, commonly known as the Lortie Commission:

The extent to which citizens exercise this most fundamental right can be seen as an indicator of the health of democracy. A low level of voter turnout can be taken as indicative of political alienation among a good proportion of the populace; as a consequence, elected leaders may not be seen as fully legitimate. A lack of confidence when manifested through low voter turnout may also affect the legitimacy of basic political institutions. Conversely, high voter turnout can be construed as evidence of both a high level of commitment to the political order and the existence of a citizenry interested in the welfare of their nation (Bakvis, 1991: xvii).

Bakvis wrote those words before the precipitous decline in Canada’s turnout rate

became apparent. At the time, notes Bakvis, Canadians were often under the

impression that voter turnout in their country was “commendably high” (1991:

xvii). And while that may not have been the case at the time, it is certainly not the

case now.

In addition to those presented by Bakvis, there are other (albeit related) reasons to

value higher turnout. One is that political leaders are likely to behave more

scrupulously if they feel they are being held accountable by a politically engaged

citizenry. Another is that the intention to vote might spur the voter to become a

better-‐informed citizen. One might even suppose that the act of voting creates in the

voter a sense of investment in the welfare of society that will pay dividends in the

future. While the sum of the aforementioned reasons for the desirability of higher

turnout is convincing to the author, it should be noted that any attempt to test them

lies far beyond the scope of this paper. Readers who remain skeptical of the value of

higher turnout should interpret the forthcoming analysis accordingly.

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But how does that assumption translate into policy prescriptions? To put it bluntly,

elections should be accessible to as many citizens as possible. Administrative

regimes should be set up in such a way as to stimulate higher turnout. Governments

should strive, within reasonable limits, to remove administrative impediments to

participation such that more of their citizens will be inclined to take part in

elections. There is no denying that individuals must take some responsibility for the

fulfillment of their own civic duties, but governments should remove any barriers

that unnecessarily increase the indirect costs of voting. Thus, the first criterion of

my evaluative framework is accessibility.

Another foundational assumption adopted in this paper is captured by Section 3 of

the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees that “every citizen

of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons

or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein” (Canada,

1982). In accordance with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Charter, my contention is

not merely that a system of electoral administration ought to allow every citizen the

right to vote. Rather, it is that Canada’s national and provincial governments should

take reasonable steps to ensure that all Canadians have roughly equal opportunity

to participate in the electoral process. To borrow again from the Charter, groups for

whom the cost of participation is disproportionately high should be accommodated

“subject only to such reasonable limits… as can be demonstrably justified in a free

and democratic society.” If Canada’s governments are in a position to level the

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playing field with respect to the accessibility of the elections, I submit that they have

a moral obligation to do so, at least in the absence of strong countervailing

arguments. I shall call this the principle of inclusiveness.

Finally, this paper is founded on the assumption that elections should be

administered in such a way as to increase the real and perceived legitimacy of their

results. An election process that bestows legitimacy on its results will best promote

the principles of Peace, Order and Good Government that lie at the root of Canada’s

constitutional order. One way of increasing the legitimacy of an electoral result is, as

Bakvis suggests, promoting a high rate of voter turnout. Anecdotal evidence of this

assertion can be found in Alberta’s recent experience: turnout in the most recent

provincial election was a mere 40.6% (Alberta, 2008: 158). Because of that turnout

rate, it was possible for roughly one fifth of the province’s eligible voters to elect a

commanding majority government. The perceived weakness of that government’s

mandate is a bone of contention in the province, at least among the governing

party’s partisan opponents. One can imagine how such a result could cause many

citizens to become disillusioned with their democratic system.

Another way to ensure the legitimacy of election results is to avoid real or perceived

opportunities for electoral fraud. Preventing fraud is among the primary concerns of

anyone who would seek to reform electoral administration. Accordingly, reasons for

improving the accessibility of elections through administrative reform need to be

balanced against the always-‐pressing need to ensure that the rules are enforceable.

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So, the three guiding principles of this analysis are accessibility, inclusiveness, and

legitimacy. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to leave room for other considerations,

particularly those of a pragmatic nature. For example, it is possible for a program of

reform to adhere to all three principles of this framework, but at too great a cost to

be justified by the anticipated benefit. Common sense therefore requires that other

considerations be allowed to play into the forthcoming evaluation.

In Chapter 4, the framework established here will be used to perform a comparative

analysis across eleven jurisdictions. The jurisdictions considered are Canada and

each of its ten provinces. The governments of those jurisdictions determine their

own electoral practices within certain constitutional constraints, which makes

Canada an interesting setting for comparison. That comparison will allow for the

identification of best practices from a set of existing alternatives. It may also be

useful – especially given the recent proliferation of computational and

communications technologies – to explore bold new policy frontiers. But significant

headway can nonetheless be made by evaluating those policies that have already

been tested in a Canadian setting. I have taken the latter approach here.

Before beginning that analysis, the next two chapters will provide the necessary

context. Chapter 2 will delve more deeply into the problem of turnout decline,

touching on its history and its causes. Chapter 3 will then review some of the

relevant literature on the relationship between electoral administration and

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turnout. Finally, Chapter 5 will contextualize the findings from Chapter 4 and

recommend specific reforms.

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Chapter 2 – Exploring Turnout Decline In 1970, Canada lowered the voting age from twenty-‐one to eighteen. The case for

that change was made in 1969 in the Trudeau government’s second throne speech.

According to that speech, the franchise was to be expanded in order to diffuse “a

rising tide of unrest, particularly among young people.” The government was

responding to the demands of youth “to assume greater responsibility for the

destiny of our society” (Canada, 1969: 4). The ruling elite of the day had compelling

reasons to nurture this unrest among the youth, and especially among students. Its

emergence is now part of the popular mythology of the 1960s. In May of 1968,

students instigated a movement that nearly caused the French government to

collapse. Closer to home were the American students at the forefront of the

powerful anti-‐Vietnam War movement, which included widespread civil

disobedience.

The four subsequent decades have shifted the popular narrative. Talk of a rising tide

of unrest has faded. In 2011, neither the government nor anyone else is worried that

the political ambitions of Canadian youth will boil over into civil strife. On the

contrary, commentators are now lamenting a rising tide of apathy and

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disengagement. A recent example comes from Robert Fowler, a former Canadian

ambassador to the United Nations, who told a group of graduating students at the

University of Ottawa “your age group's involvement in the political process, at all

levels of government, stretches any reasonable definition of apathy” (Butler, 2010).

Prominent newspaper columnist Lawrence Martin took a similarly harsh tone in a

Globe and Mail editorial. “The young reject the political status quo, as they should,”

writes Martin, “but they are too lazy to do anything about it. Most of the under-‐25s

don't even bother to vote” (Martin, 2009).

As far as the voter turnout rate is concerned, the best available estimates suggest

that Martin is correct, and by a wide margin. Due to the confidentiality of secret

balloting, there are no official figures on youth voter turnout in Canada. In 2004,

however, Elections Canada began collecting data on a large sample of Canadians

who turn out to vote in national elections in order to break down voter turnout by

age group. According to that data, only 37% of 18-‐24 year olds turned out to vote in

the national election of 2004. That number rose to 43.8% in 2006 only to slide back

down to 37.4% in 2008 (Canada, 2008b: 3). Each of these figures is substantially

lower than Elections Canada’s overall turnout figures for each of those three

elections, with gaps of roughly 23.9%, 20.9% and 21.4%, respectively.

Comparable figures for provincial elections are not always available, but some

recent figures suggest a similar trend at the provincial level. Like Elections Canada,

the electoral agencies of some provinces have begun to use administrative data to

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estimate voter turnout by age group. According to Elections Nova Scotia, only 24%

of eligible 18-‐24 year-‐olds voted in the general election of 2009, compared to 54%

of the eligible electorate as a whole (Nova Scotia, 2009: 2-‐7). Also in 2009, British

Columbia reported a 26.9% turnout among 18-‐24 year-‐olds, with an overall turnout

of 51% (2009: 39). New Brunswick, which provided figures based on registered (as

opposed to eligible) voters, reported that 50% of 18-‐24 year-‐old electors voted in

the 2006 election, compared to 67.5% overall (2006: 28). New Brunswick also

reported that young people were less likely to register than other eligible voters, so

the actual turnout gap was probably much higher. Elections Alberta, rather than

providing their own estimates, commissioned a study by Leger Marketing that uses

survey research to dissect turnout. Although that study vastly overreports voter

turnout, it is worth noting that self-‐reported participation among 18-‐24 year-‐olds

was 26% lower than the provincial average (2008: 36).

These exceptionally low voting rates among Canada’s youth contribute to a general

pattern of turnout decline, at least at the national level. That decline began with the

national election of 1993. Turnout for the 1988 election reflected what was then the

post-‐World War Two average, with approximately 75% voting. It has been in steady

decline ever since. The only moderate uptick (an increase of 3.8% between 2004

and 2006) was quickly overshadowed by the general election of 2008, in which

turnout reached a new low of 58.8% (Canada, 2008b: 4). Viewing it with the clarity

of hindsight, the decline has been precipitous: more than 16 percentage points over

a 20-‐year period. Bear in mind also that Elections Canada’s figures measure turnout

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among registered voters; turnout among eligible voters tends to be substantially

lower.

Declining voter turnout is also apparent – albeit not universally – at the provincial

level. Alberta set a new record in 2008 when only 40.6% of eligible voters turned

out in the general election, the lowest turnout for the election of any legislature in

the history of Canada (Alberta, 2008: 158). Three other provinces also set provincial

records for lowest turnout in their most recent general elections: Ontario (2007,)

British Columbia (2009) and Nova Scotia (2009).

“It has become evident,” wrote Henry Milner, “that in Canada, as elsewhere (perhaps

even more than elsewhere), the key factor in the decline has been abstention among

young people” (2005: 2). It should come as no surprise that turnout is lower among

younger demographics. It has long been accepted that one’s rate of political

participation tends to increase with age. According to one early analysis, “young

people do not have a stable basis for concern with politics. Such a basis comes with

extended residence in a locality, full involvement in the work force, marriage, and a

family” (Nie et al., 1974: 333). A more recent account by Highton and Wolfinger

places less emphasis on such specific age-‐correlated events in the life cycle, but

nevertheless finds life-‐cycle effects to be important; youth, in itself, is a predictor of

abstention from the electoral process (Highton and Wolfinger, 2001). These life

cycle effects lead to a crucial question: how much of the decline in voter turnout is

attributable to those effects, and how much is due to generational replacement? As

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Blais et. al. put it, “are younger citizens presently less likely to vote because they

happen to be young – the implication being that their propensity to vote will

increase as they get older – or because they belong to a generation that is less

willing to vote – the implication being that their participation rate will always be

lower than that of previous generations” (Blais et al., 2004: 221)?

One seminal study, which examines data up to the year 2000, has shown that the

non-‐participation of Canadians born after 1970 accounts for the vast majority of

turnout decline since 1988 (Blais et al., 2004). The authors use data from nine

Canadian Election Studies dating back to 1968 in order to shed light on the nature of

turnout decline. By using multiple datasets spanning more than three decades, the

authors are able to compare different age cohorts at comparable stages in their life-‐

cycles, which allows for life-‐cycle effects and generational effects to be disentangled.

Blais et. al. estimate that there are powerful life-‐cycle effects at play in their data:

one’s likelihood of voting increases by roughly 15% between 20 and 50 years of age.

They conclude, however, that life-‐cycle effects could not have produced the decline

in voter turnout; the age composition of the electorate did not change much

between 1988 and 2000, and the slight change that was observed should have

produced a small increase in participation (Blais et al., 2004: 227). Instead,

participation plummeted by over 11%.

Generational effects were found to be the primary driving force behind turnout

decline. Even when compared at the same point in their lives, Canadians born after

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1970 were 20% less likely to vote than those born before 1945, leading the authors

to conclude that “the gradual replacement of the latter by the former accounts for

most of the turnout gap between pre-‐ and post-‐1990 elections” (Blais et al., 2004:

227). This finding is profound; it suggests that, even as they age, recent generations

of Canadians will not turn out to vote as frequently as the generations they replace.

The upshot is that the downward trend in overall voter turnout is likely to continue

for some time even if the low rates of turnout are reversed among tomorrow’s

youngest voters. To borrow from Robert Putnam, who perceived a similar trend in

the United States, “each campaign’s efforts to get out the vote must begin at a lower

base level, for every year the Grim Reaper removes another swath of the most

politically engaged generation of the… electorate” (Putnam, 2000: 35).

Another key to the puzzle of turnout decline is the phenomenon that Plutzer (2002)

has called inertia. According to Plutzer, an important predictor of a voter’s

behaviour in a given election is their behaviour in the last few elections. Those who

do not vote in the first election for which they are eligible are less likely to vote in

the future. Conversely, those who have voted in a previous election are likely to

resume voting in subsequent ones. This tendency is attributed partly to the

relatively high cost of first-‐time voting. First-‐time voters must learn about the

process of voting (including how to register and locate their polling station) as well

as the basics of the political landscape (including what the key issues are and where

the parties stand.) Furthermore, these costs are magnified for young people, who

tend to have lower incomes, weaker ties to their community, and less opportunity to

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be exposed to social environments that reinforce civic behaviour. To overcome

those initial costs is to cross an important threshold, after which one is likely to

remain a habitual voter.

One of Plutzer’s assumptions was that as the costs of voting were reduced and

pressures to vote were increased, habitual non-‐voters would almost certainly make

the transition to habitual voting (2002: 42). A subsequent study by Franklin (2004)

suggests that this is not the case. Using a much larger dataset than Plutzer, Franklin

found that one’s inertial state is largely cemented after three elections. “There is no

evidence that habitual nonvoters become habitual voters in any large numbers after

the third election to which they are exposed,” writes Franklin (2004: 204).

Franklin echoes Plutzer’s argument that the costs of learning to vote are magnified

for young people (2002: 63). The newly enfranchised, who are facing the trials of

early adulthood, face greater barriers to participation during their first elections

than older citizens. As a result, they are less likely to vote, and therefore to waste

one of their three opportunities (ex hypothesi) to transition into habitual voting.

Ironically, one of the implications of Franklin’s research is that, by extending the

franchise to eighteen year olds, modern democracies may have caused a long-‐term

decline in voter turnout by shifting the crucial first three elections into the stage in a

potential voter’s life-‐cycle when he or she is less prepared to overcome the start-‐up

costs of voting and become a habitual voter. That finding is all the more significant

in light of more recent work by Johnston et al. (2007). Those authors conducted a

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study on the relationship between electoral competitiveness and turnout (discussed

in greater detail below) in which they applied the logic of what they call Franklin’s

“rule of three” to Canadian data. They found that the formative period of voter

socialization consisted of only two elections, which led them to suggest a “rule of

two.” According to their analysis, voters are socialized into a more or less

permanent inertial state between the ages of eighteen and 26 (Johnston et al., 2007:

739). This finding raises the stakes of youth turnout decline: if youth do not begin

voting within a few years of achieving the franchise, the current downward trend in

turnout is likely to continue for many decades.

There is currently a paucity of research on the voting behaviour of post-‐secondary

students. Using survey data from the 1984 election, when overall turnout was a

now-‐enviable 76%, Pammett writes that the turnout rate among students was

substantially lower at 68% (Pammett, 1991: 40). More recently, Blais and Loewen,

who use Canada Election Study data ranging from 1997 to 2006, found that the

percentage of students voting was in the mid forties (2009: 6). Because of

differences in survey methodology, the two figures are not precisely comparable.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that student turnout appears to have declined by

more than 20%, exceeding the overall rate of decline.

Despite their low turnout rate, Blais and Loewen did find students to be more likely

to vote than non-‐students in their cohort. Blais and Loewen found that among 18-‐24

year-‐olds, students were 9% more likely to vote than non-‐students (2009: 6). This

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finding mirrors that of Wolfinger and Rosenstone who found, after controlling for

various socio-‐demographic factors, that students in the United States were more

likely to vote than non-‐students of the same age (1980: 56-‐7). That students vote in

higher numbers than their non-‐student peers is unsurprising. Countless studies

show a positive correlation between education and turnout, including a seminal one

by Wolfinger and Rosenstone themselves, whose book-‐length study on electoral

participation found the positive effect of education on turnout to be their “core

finding” (1980: 102). Some fairly recent research by Rubenson et al. has confirmed

this correlation in a Canadian context (2004: 39). If anything, the size of the turnout

gap between students and non-‐students is surprisingly small, given the strong and

pervasive effect of education.

The lack of literature on the voting behaviour of Canadian students is regrettable.

After all, it has been established that the voting behaviour of young Canadians is

driving turnout decline, and post-‐secondary students make up a substantial portion

of young Canadians: nearly 55% of 18-‐24 year-‐olds and 20% of 25-‐30 year-‐olds

(Blais and Loewen, 2009: 5). Many newly eligible Canadians experience their first

election or two while pursuing a post-‐secondary education. If the findings of

Franklin (2004) and Johnston et al. (2007) are to be believed, those who seek to

encourage greater voter turnout (including elections agencies, concerned citizens

and interest groups) need to engage voters within their first two or three election

cycles. Otherwise, those voters are likely to establish a strong inertial tendency not

to vote, and have thus far shown little evidence of overcoming that inertia. Those

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elections occur at precisely the stage in the life-‐cycle during which Canadians tend

to be enrolled in post-‐secondary institutions.

Researchers seeking a holistic understanding of voter engagement should look at

measures that target both students and non-‐students within younger cohorts. After

all, student turnout is less than ideal, but turnout among less-‐educated youth is

much worse. A dramatic illustration of this is provided by Gidengil et al., who write

that among those born since 1970, the turnout gap between university graduates

and high-‐school dropouts is 50% (2004: 111). Moreover, O’Neill points out that the

literature on political engagement largely neglects the interplay between youth and

other politically important characteristics: “education, income, gender, Aboriginal

status, ethnicity and immigrant status… each has received too little focused

attention among researchers who examine engagement” (2007: 21). Nevertheless, it

is useful to study how to target students in particular. Above, in the discussion of

voter inertia, I made some mention of the fact that students face common barriers to

electoral participation. Those student-‐specific barriers create a number of

challenges for those who would seek to engage them in the electoral process. One

important example cited by Pammett is students’ above-‐average residential mobility

(1991: 36). On the other hand, policymakers can harness the common

characteristics of student life and thereby target students as a group. For instance,

polling stations and educational resources can be targeted at campuses, where

students overwhelmingly tend to congregate. Student associations can be contacted

to assist with voter outreach. Residency rules can be crafted to accommodate

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students whose lives are divided between multiple constituencies. Some of these

measures will be considered in much greater detail below. They are mentioned here

in order to illustrate the utility – for researchers and for policymakers – of adopting

a student-‐centered approach.

In a study conducted for the Lortie commission, Pammett writes that “the voting

problems of students are well-‐known” (1991: 36). Though that may be true among

those who work and study on post-‐secondary campuses, or even among avid

consumers of political news, it is not reflected in the academic literature. But, while

the problems that were so clear to Pammett decades ago remain largely

unexplained, a broader focus reveals a rich body of research on the overall causes of

turnout decline. And, as Blais et al. (2004) have discovered, that general decline has

been driven almost entirely by Canadians born since 1970. And so, by extension, a

review of the literature on the causes of turnout decline can shed some light on the

causes of abstention among younger generations of Canadians. The same review

will also reveal that the question is by no means settled: scholars have advanced a

variety of explanations for what turns out to be an exceedingly complex

phenomenon.

Some of those explanations have pointed to an underlying cultural shift. Blais et al.

write that “the most recent generations are less prone to vote in good part because

they pay less attention to politics and because they are less likely to adhere to the

norm that voting is a moral duty. The decline in turnout thus reflects a larger

25

cultural change” (2004, 234). This type of cultural explanation harkens back to the

findings of Putnam, whose influential book Bowling Alone (2000) pointed to a

decline in America’s social capital as a root cause of, among other things,

disengagement with the electoral process. Blais et al. suggest that young Canadians’

declining tendency to view voting as a moral duty is due in part the corresponding

decline in deference identified by Nevitte (1996). And, according to both Howe

(2003) and Milner (2005), that declining sense of civic duty compounds effect of low

political knowledge. As Milner puts it, “Lacking a sense of civic duty to vote, young

people are less inclined to seek the information they need to vote meaningfully, and

their declining sense of civic duty makes turning out to vote increasingly dependent

on an adequate level of political knowledge” (2005: 7).

Although they have received widespread scholarly attention, cultural explanations

have not gone unchallenged. Johnston et al. have explicitly taken aim at the

explanation put forth by Blais et al., claiming that it has “at best a modest basis in

fact” (2007: 736). They provide an alternative explanation: that the decline in

turnout at the national level can be attributed primarily to the shift in Canada’s

party system before the 1993 election, and on the effects shift had on the real and

perceived competitiveness of electoral contests. The shift away from the nationally-‐

oriented Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties toward the

regionally concentrated Reform and Bloc Québécois led to a decline in both local

and national competitiveness, which Johnston et al. single out as the driving force

behind turnout decline. Furthermore, they argue, the negative effect of decreased

26

competitiveness is likely to persist due to voter inertia: “Voters who began coming

of age in the 1990s or who were still coming of age as the decade began were

exposed to a political world in which competition was weak, in which the local

result was commonly a foregone conclusion. This may be a generation that learned

not to vote” (Johnston et al., 2007: 742).

Yet another explanation – and one that is especially relevant to the current study –

is that the overhaul of Canada’s national voter registration regime has contributed

to turnout decline, at least at the national level. According to Courtney, “voter

registration systems around the world are of two different kinds, according to

where the responsibility for initiating the registration lies: with the individual or

with the government” (2004: 80). Before 1997, the state took responsibility for

ensuring that the register of electors was an accurate reflection of Canada’s voting-‐

age population. From 1938 to 1997, the registration regime remained more-‐or-‐less

unchanged: before every election, Elections Canada conducted door-‐to-‐door

enumeration in every polling district in the country. But, as Courtney notes with

undeniable nostalgia, “door-‐to-‐door enumeration as Canadians had known it for

sixty years was not to last” (2004: 83). The 1997 enumeration was used as the basis

for a permanent register of electors. Instead of compiling a new list before each

election, Elections Canada now maintains a permanent list, which is subject to

ongoing revision. So while the state still takes some responsibility for ensuring the

accuracy of the register, the onus now lies primarily with the individual elector. (For

a review of the circumstances leading up to this overhaul, see Black, 2003).

27

Black argues that the shift from enumeration to a permanent register is partly to

blame for the decline in turnout, at least since the election of 2000, the first election

that was not preceded by a traditional enumeration: “By and large, the evidence

indicates that the new registration approach has contributed to this decline and has

accentuated participation gaps across social groups” (Black, 2003: 33). One of the

participation gaps that Black points to is the age gap: younger voters have

disproportionately shouldered the negative effects of new registration regime.

Divergent as they may seem, the various explanations for Canada’s turnout decline

are not mutually exclusive. Each of them is supported by a substantial body of

scholarly evidence, the depth of which cannot be properly conveyed in such a brief

review. In light of that evidence, it makes sense to view each explanation as a piece

of a large and complex puzzle. That puzzle is far from completion, if one can extend

the metaphor in such a way. Despite that, one thing is clear: turnout decline is a

multifaceted problem, and reversing it will require a multifaceted solution. The

purpose of this paper is to explore what I would argue is a small but important part

of that solution: administrative reforms to facilitate the student vote. Black’s

research on voter registration has already demonstrated that administrative

measures can influence turnout. The purpose of the next chapter is to delve more

deeply into the relationship between electoral administration and voter turnout.

28

Chapter 3 – Administration and Turnout In the words of Robert A. Pastor, “at one and the same time, elections are both the

supreme political act and a complicated administrative exercise” (1999: 75).

Unfortunately, the administrative aspect is understudied in the literature. In their

pioneering review of election law, Massicotte et al. lament this imbalance and argue

for the importance of oft-‐neglected election rules (2004: 3-‐4). But, as Massicotte et

al. have noted, not all fields of electoral law have been ignored. There is a great deal

of academic material on electoral systems and the translation of seats into votes,

and for good reason. Electoral systems are crucial in determining how it is that the

will of the people is translated into representation and, by extension, governance.

But electoral systems have exhibited a great deal of inertia; even single-‐member

plurality systems, which tend to substantially misrepresent the will of the voters,

are resistant to change. One of the many reasons to study electoral administration is

that it is likely to have more immediate policy implications. Elected representatives

have reason to be cautious about overhauling the electoral system that brought

them to office, even if that overhaul would lead to greater democracy (or, to adopt

the framework of this paper, greater accessibility, inclusiveness and legitimacy.)

Electoral administration, on the other hand, can be reformed in an incremental

29

manner. In implementing administrative reforms, policymakers can improve

elections without drastically altering the political landscape.

Of course, it would be a mistake to imply that electoral administration cannot have

drastic effects. One could scarcely imagine a more drastic effect than that which

arose in Palm Beach County, Florida in the American presidential election of 2000.

One group of researchers have shown rather convincingly that the particular ballot

structure adopted in that county – the much-‐maligned butterfly ballot – caused

thousands of voters to mistakenly vote for Pat Buchanan (Wand et al., 2004). That

discrepancy was enough to alter the outcome of the entire presidential election,

effectively handing the world’s most powerful political office to the wrong winner.

While that example proves the importance of electoral administration, it is an

anomaly of the most extreme variety. The administrative measures considered

herein are not aimed at fundamentally reshaping election outcomes; they are aimed

at improving the electoral process in a pragmatic and incremental manner. For that

reason, the critical study of electoral administration may act as a more immediate

catalyst for positive change than the also-‐important study of electoral systems.

Given the sparse literature on the subject, there is room for debate about what to

include within the broad category of electoral administration (EA), and this is not

the place to establish a comprehensive definition. In general terms, EA consists of

the set of rules and practices used by an electoral management body to organize and

implement an election within the confines of the existing electoral system and

30

districting formula. Electoral districting is excluded not because of any abstract

principle, but because it is so closely associated with the study of electoral systems.

There are, no doubt, some administrative aspects of electoral systems and

districting formulae that affect students profoundly, but those will be up to future

research to examine.

While there exists a body of literature on the relationship between EA and turnout,

it is limited in scope. Most of the available research stems from the United States.

Given the lack of comparative data, it is difficult to project existing findings onto

other jurisdictions. As James noted in a recent review, “The study of electoral

administration needs to spread globally beyond the US so that researchers can

contextualise the findings made so far from American elections with other

countries” (2010a: 366). Existing evidence is also overwhelmingly quantitative

(James, 2010b: 370). In the absence of a well-‐developed theoretical framework, the

direct applicability of US data is even more limited.

Much of the cross-‐national data that is available is of limited applicability to the

problem of student turnout in Canada. For example, studies of both Oregon and

Switzerland have suggested that all-‐postal voting, where polling stations are

eliminated entirely, has a significant expansive effect on turnout (see, for example,

Southwell and Burchett, 2000; Luechinger et al., 2007). There is also cross-‐national

evidence to suggest (unsurprisingly) that compulsory voting has a profoundly

positive effect on participation when sanctions are applied to non-‐voters (for a

31

review see James, 2010b). There is reason to believe that both of these measures

would lead to a substantial increase in student turnout, but an in-‐depth analysis of

such sweeping, radical changes to EA lies beyond the scope of the current study.

One area of EA that has received some attention in Canada – and a great deal of

attention in the United States – is the effect of voter registration methods on

participation. Mitchell and Wlezien note that literature on the registration-‐turnout

relationship has a long history, dating back to work by Merriam and Gosnell in 1924

(1995: 180). Probably the most important contribution to that literature in Canada

is the aforementioned study by Black (2003), which demonstrated that the switch

from door-‐to-‐door enumeration to a permanent register of electors appears to have

impeded both the accessibility and the inclusiveness of Canadian elections. Black

seems to suggest that there were many electors who would have voted, had they not

encountered problems with the new voter registration regime. There are a number

of reasons for this. One is that many Canadians did not receive a voter information

card, received someone else’s card, or received a card with incorrect information.

That problem was compounded by Elections Canada advertising that implied,

incorrectly, that unregistered or incorrectly registered voters could not cast their

ballot on polling day (Black, 2003: 24). This problem was disproportionately borne

by younger voters. “Among those between the ages of 18 and 24, only one in every

two individuals (48.9 percent) received a correctly addressed card with accurate

information,” writes Black, noting further that “part-‐time and full-‐time students

were also prone to be in registration situations where some remedial measures

32

were necessary. Only 50.0 percent of students found themselves in the ideal

registration situation” (2003: 26-‐7). In order to illustrate the effect of these

registration flaws, it is worth quoting Black at length:

For respondents in the most favourable registration situation – those who received a card with correct information – 88.3 percent ended up voting. Turnout fell, but only modestly, to 82.9 percent, for those who received a card with some incorrect personal information. However, the decline is noticeably greater, down to 72.2 percent, for those who received a card addressed to someone else. Finally, the lowest participation level and the biggest drop across categories occur in connection with those who received no card at all, with barely half, or 51.2 percent, indicating that they had cast a ballot. This represents a huge gap between the two extreme registration situations (Black, 2003: 29).

The figures cited here do not imply a causal relationship, a difficulty that the author

was conscious of. Black ran a number of supplementary statistical tests in order to

determine whether registration problems caused lower turnout or whether they

were merely correlated. Black found other factors to be partially responsible for the

turnout gap between those who were correctly registered and those who were not,

but he nevertheless concludes that registration had a strong independent effect:

“The inference… is not only that registration matters, but that it matters a great

deal” (2003: 31). Black also concludes that that effect was disproportionately borne

by the young and, to a lesser extent, the poor (2003: 33).

As I’ve noted in the previous chapter, the adoption of a permanent list transferred

the responsibility for registration from the state to the individual. And although

there are provisions in place to use existing sources of government data to update

the registry, there are many Canadians who have been faced with significant

33

increases in the costs of registration and, consequently, the costs of voting. Although

many differences persist, the switch from a state-‐initiated to a citizen-‐initiated

registration system renders American research on registration and turnout more

applicable to the Canadian case; the US has traditionally placed the onus of

registration on individual citizens (Courtney, 2004). So while American data is not

directly applicable to Canada or its provinces, the relevance of US research should

not be discounted.

One influential piece of American research is an oft-‐cited study by Rosenstone and

Wolfinger (1978), who used the wide variety of registration procedures among US

states in the 1972 presidential election to tease out the effect various measures

would have on participation. They found that early registration deadlines had a

profound negative effect on turnout. According to their estimates, the nation-‐wide

adoption of a single reform – namely, keeping registration open until election day –

would lead to a 6.1% increase in overall turnout. They also found that by expanding

the opening hours of registration offices and allowing absentee registration by the

sick, disabled, and absent would lead to another 3% increase in turnout. Given the

size of the potential electorate in the United States, the 9.1% increase predicted by

Rosenstone and Wolfinger translates to approximately 12.2 million additional

voters (1978: 33).

A number of studies have focused more specifically on Election Day Registration

(EDR), whereby potential voters can register at the polls, and its effect on turnout.

34

The findings of some studies reflect those of Rosenstone and Wolfinger. Fenster

credited EDR for boosting turnout by about 5% in American states where it was

implemented (1994: 84). Brians and Grofman estimated that adopting that

particular measure would increase turnout by 7% in the average American state

(2001: 170). In contrast, King and Wambeam (1995) found no convincing

correlation between EDR and turnout. Note, however, that in their subsequent

study, Brians and Grofman question the ability of King and Wambeam’s research

model to control for confounding effects (2001: 172). Blais et al. actually found that

election day registration caused a mild decrease in turnout, but expressed some

skepticism of that finding in light of contrary evidence from more detailed studies

from the US (2003: 11).

Mitchell and Wlezien (1995) modified Rosenstone and Wolfinger’s methods and

applied them to a much larger dataset, which included presidential and mid-‐term

elections from 1972 to 1982. They estimated that the liberalization of registration

laws would produce an increase in turnout of 7.6% at the national level (Mitchell

and Wlezien, 1995: 191). Unlike Rosenstone and Wolfinger, Mitchell and Wlezien

found that preventing frequent purges of the electoral register had a significant

effect on turnout, presumably because those who have been purged must make the

effort to register anew. A number of studies have also suggested that the National

Voter Registration Act in the United States, which used a range of approaches to

lower the indirect costs of registration, had a positive effect on turnout (see Franklin

and Grier, 1997; Wolfinger and Hoffman, 2001).

35

Another branch of EA research that is of particular relevance to students is that

which studies the effect of residential mobility on turnout, and, more specifically,

how that effect can be mitigated through EA. It has long been understood that recent

arrivals to a given community are less likely to vote than long-‐time residents. “Those

who have lived longer in the community participate more than others of their age;

newer residents participate a great deal less,” wrote Nie et al. (1974: 334). Squire et

al. (1987) confirm that result. However, Squire et al. were particularly interested in

the effect that registration procedures would have on those who had recently

changed residences. They found that liberalized registration deadlines had a

positive effect on turnout among recent arrivals. Although their data varies

significantly across the statistical methods used, Squire et al. argue that the burden

of registration has a substantial negative influence on turnout among those who

have recently moved. They conclude that “there is no question that election day

registration would be particularly beneficial to such people” (1987: 57).

In a later study, Brians (1997) found that the effect of mobility on turnout to be

much smaller in Canada. This is attributed largely to the fact that registration

procedures then were less onerous in Canada than in the US; Brians’ data was

collected before the elimination of door-‐to-‐door enumeration. While there appears

to be no recent Canadian data on the subject, it is likely that the effect of mobility on

turnout has grown as a result of the aforementioned overhaul of Canada’s voter

registration regime.

36

So far the current review has focused on the effects of registration, but there is also

evidence to suggest that post-‐registration procedures can have a positive effect on

turnout. One way of achieving this effect is by making polling stations more

accessible. For example, Gimpel and Schuknecht (2003) demonstrated a modest but

significant correlation between the geographical closeness of polling stations and

turnout. After controlling for socio-‐economic variables, they found that turnout

increases by 1.73% with every 5-‐mile reduction in distance that potential voters

would need to travel. “Aggregating this figure over precincts throughout an entire

metropolitan area or state,” write Gimpel and Schuknecht, “yields an effect of great

magnitude, influencing the turnout of thousands of voters” (2003: 484). There is

also some evidence to suggest that Election Day Voting Centres (EDVCs) can boost

turnout by lowering the costs of participation. Stein and Vonnahme (2008) found

that EDVCs increase turnout by 2.6% among registered electors. Taking a different

angle, Wolfinger et al. (2005) studied the effect the opening hours of polling stations

had on turnout. They estimate that opening polling stations before 7:00am could

increase turnout by approximately 1.7%, and that keeping them open after 7:00pm

could increase turnout by about 1% (2005: 9).

Voter outreach can also lead to increased voter turnout. Most of the available

research on voter outreach has been focused on partisan efforts to “get out the vote”

(for a review, see Green and Gerber, 2008). Of the available research on non-‐

partisan outreach efforts, the results of Wolfinger et al. (2005) are particularly

37

relevant. They found that youth turnout rates were higher in American states where

registered voters received sample ballots and information on polling stations in the

mail. Multivariate analysis revealed that mailing out polling station information and

sample ballots increased turnout by an estimated 0.6% and 1.2%, respectively.

Furthermore, the effect of sending out sample ballots was found to have a

particularly pronounced effect on young voters living away from home, increasing

turnout in that group by 7.1% (Wolfinger et al., 2005: 12). This last finding is

particularly important here, given that it applies to such a large proportion of post-‐

secondary students. The conclusions of Wolfinger et al. are consistent with the

Canadian literature; as noted above, Black (2003) has demonstrated that the receipt

of correct registration information by post has a significant effect on turnout.

The preceding review demonstrates that removing various administrative barriers

to voting has been shown in many cases to have a positive effect on turnout.

Rosenstone and Wolfinger had this in mind when they wrote the following: “the

more permissive the registration laws, the lower the time, energy, and information

costs of voting. This is of greatest benefit to people whose interest is not sufficient to

carry them across the higher threshold imposed by more restrictive provisions”

(1978: 37). This reasoning harkens back to Downs (1957), who famously argued for

the adoption of a rational choice model for the study of political behaviour, wherein

political actors are assumed to perform various cost-‐benefit analyses in pursuit of

self-‐interest. Blais (2000), among others, has argued convincingly that rational

choice theories cannot be relied on to provide a comprehensive account of political

38

behaviour. Still, it is hardly surprising that the costs of voting have an effect on

turnout. As Jerome Black put it in his study of registration procedures, “it is

pertinent to recall the near-‐truism that the level of participation is inversely related

to the amount of effort required to carry out the activity in question” (2003, 19), and

there is little reason to suspect that voting behaviour among Canada’s post-‐

secondary student population is any exception.

But how much of an increase in turnout could actually be achieved through

administrative reforms? How many Canadians would be motivated enough to vote if

administrative barriers were lowered or removed?

Some researchers of the electoral administration-‐turnout relationship have

downplayed the significance of their results. For example, Brians and Grofman, who

predicted that registration reform could raise average turnout by 7%, referred to

this as “a modest effect on the total number of voters” (2001: 170). This

characterization ignores an important fact: if the reforms studied by Brians and

Grofman were implemented in the United States, where they were studying, their

predictions would estimate an actual increase in turnout of several million voters

(with the exact figure depending on the time of implementation.) There is evidence

to suggest that the gains in turnout would be substantial in the Canadian case as

well. Part of that evidence comes from a study by Pammett, which was published by

the Lortie Commission in 1991. Pammett noticed that there were a number of

Canadians who had voted in some of the elections since they had reached the age of

39

majority, but not in others. In an attempt to explain that phenomenon, he used

survey data from three national elections to determine Canadians’ reasons for

abstaining. Pammett found that many non-‐voters were “administratively

disenfranchised”: they would have voted, but they were not able to, either because

they were away from home, ill, busy, or they were missed in the process of

enumeration (1991: 38). Pammett also found that the most important group of

administratively disenfranchised voters – those who were away from home – was

disproportionately populated by young electors. Pammett used the attitudinal

characteristics of respondents, such as their interest in the election, to estimate how

many non-‐voters would have voted had administrative conditions been more

favourable. Although his figures are admittedly speculative, Pammett estimated that

a “comprehensive package” of administrative reform could have improved turnout

by 7.2%, noting that a total rise in voting turnout of 10% is not out of the question.

Pammett’s study dealt with data that is now over two decades old, and much has

changed. Many of the reforms he recommended in 1991 – which include special

ballots, mobile polls and flexible list revision – have since been implemented and, as

we now know, they failed to prevent a decline in turnout. On the other hand, it is

reasonable to assume that without the adoption of those reforms, turnout would be

substantially lower today.

After the Canadian election of 2000, Elections Canada commissioned a study by

Pammett and Leduc (2003) to explain why so many Canadians were not voting. The

40

methods used for that study were different from those that Pammett used in 1991,

but Pammett and Leduc’s results echo Pammett’s 1991 study in some important

respects. The 2003 report seems to show that, compared to the older data,

Canadians were more likely to have abstained from voting in 2000 simply because

they were not interested in the election, or because they felt that their vote would be

irrelevant. On the other hand, Pammett and Leduc found that there were still many

voters who would have been likely to vote had they not encountered real or

perceived administrative barriers. Pammett and Leduc speculate that

administrative reforms could still have a major impact on turnout:

“Those non-‐voters in 2000 who report being affected in their decision by what we call “personal/administrative factors” are actually quite unlike those who are not interested in politics or elections. They show every indication of wanting to vote in future, if they are able to overcome what they saw as deterrents in 2000. Any changes in electoral procedures that would allow more convenient registration or voting for this group of current non-‐voters might well pay dividends in allowing them to enter the active electorate” (Pammett and Leduc, 2003: 61).

Despite a rich trove of data, Pammett and Leduc provide no estimates of how many

additional electors could be persuaded to vote by administrative reforms, and for

good reason. There are too many factors at play to provide that type of estimate

with any certainty. The available research is simply too limited in depth, variety and

geographic distribution. Furthermore, the predicted effects of particular

administrative measures cannot be projected exactly onto all circumstances, and the

application of multiple measures would not necessarily lead to increases that are

straightforwardly cumulative.

41

But despite all of those difficulties, it is reasonable to assume that well-‐designed

reforms could increase the accessibility of elections for Canadian students.

Moreover, reforms that address the specific barriers faced by certain subsets of the

student population could have a positive effect on electoral inclusiveness. If such

reforms are implemented without sacrificing the integrity of the electoral process,

the resulting increase in participation could render election results more legitimate,

and cause the students affected to perceive them as such. In sum, administrative

reforms have the potential to improve electoral democracy according to all of the

three of the criteria established in Chapter 1. The comparative evaluation to follow

will explore some of the reforms that could be implemented in national and

provincial elections.

42

Chapter 4 – Current Practices in Comparison This chapter identifies a number of areas of EA that one might expect to have a

particular influence on the electoral participation rates of post-‐secondary students

in Canada. Rather than examining the aspects of EA that have benefitted from

previous academic attention, this chapter will focus on practices that might be of

particular relevance to students, in light of that population’s unique characteristics.

The analysis herein is therefore speculative by necessity. This is on the one hand a

cautionary note; these results are best seen as preliminary. On the other hand, it is

an invitation to researchers to subject these administrative procedures to rigorous

qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the meantime, recall that the literature on

the relationship between EA and turnout does suggest that administrative changes

to the electoral process can lead to substantially higher turnout in such a way as to

render elections more accessible and more inclusive. Although the effects of the

policies proposed herein are unmeasured, there is ample reason to believe that they

have a real (and in principle, measurable) effect on electoral participation.

The areas of EA selected for examination are registration deadlines, ordinary

residence rules and absentee voting opportunities. The jurisdictions considered are

43

Canada and its ten provinces. All accounts of current electoral practices have been

drawn from the Elections Acts of the respective jurisdictions or from Elections

Canada’s Compendium of Electoral Administration (2010), except where otherwise

indicated.

Registration Deadlines

Among the defining characteristics that distinguish Canada’s post-‐secondary

students from the general population is their high residential mobility. Most

students are young adults, and many of them choose to pursue their post-‐secondary

education away from their hometown. This combination of factors leads students to

change residences frequently, whether to move out of their family home, to move

back for the summer, to move from on-‐campus residences to apartments or any

other such reason. Recall from Chapter 3 that residential mobility depresses voter

turnout, and that the disparity between long-‐time residents and newcomers can be

at least partly attributed to the fact that newcomers face the additional burden of

renewing their registration. One way to increase voter turnout among students,

then, is to ease the registration process. If Black (2003) is correct about the limiting

effects of citizen-‐initiated registration on electoral accessibility, and more

specifically on the inclusion of youth and students, then one might consider

reversing Canada’s 1997 registration regime overhaul. But, to paraphrase Black in

colloquial terms, it appears that horse has already left the barn; the prospects of

abandoning the permanent list were slim then, and have probably grown slimmer

44

since with greater intergovernmental integration and the resolution of certain early

issues with the permanent list. It is perhaps more realistic to propose reforms of a

less radical nature.

Although there it some debate in the literature, the balance of academic evidence

suggests that Election Day Registration (EDR), which requires the elimination of

registration deadlines, can boost turnout by several percentage points. Squire et al.

(1987) found, in particular, that the elimination of registration deadlines could

boost turnout among mobile populations. Highton associates the benefits of

eliminating registration deadlines with two of the defining characteristics of

Canadian students: “both the young and the residentially mobile are more

responsive to registration closing dates and election day registration” (2004: 509).

As noted in Chapter 3, is difficult to assess the extent to which those American

authors’ findings apply to a Canadian context. But even in jurisdictions like Québec,

which still uses traditional door-‐to-‐door canvassing to enumerate its electors,

students might not be as accurately and comprehensively registered as others; their

living arrangements tend to be fluid, and their schedules do not follow the nine-‐to-‐

five pattern that enumerations are designed to accommodate. If that is the case, they

stand to reap much of the benefit of EDR.

Of the eleven jurisdictions considered in this study, ten of them already have EDR in

place. The only exception is Québec, where voters must be registered by the

Tuesday of the second week prior to the week during which polling takes place

45

(Québec, 1989: s. 2). According to the website of Québec’s electoral management

body, Le Directeur Général des Élections du Québec (2011), potential electors who

change their address before an election is instigated must either submit an online

application or, if an election period is underway, visit the revision office for their

current constituency. Québec does shoulder much of the burden of registration by

carrying out a door-‐to-‐door enumeration, and Québec legislation also allows for

registration facilities to be set up in student residences, which can ease the process

for the minority of students who live in on-‐campus facilities. Nevertheless, it is

reasonable to speculate that the current registration deadlines will make Québec’s

elections less inclusive of students.

The implementation of EDR would likely cost little to the province of Québec. It can

be administered with relative ease by existing polling station workers, as is the

current practice in all other provinces and at the national level. Besides cost, one

potential reason not to pursue EDR is the concern that allowing electors to arrive at

the polls without filing any documentation in advance would expose Québec to

electoral fraud. Other jurisdictions in Canada limit the risk of fraud by requiring

would-‐be electors to provide identification, to be vouched for by another voter, to

complete an oath or declaration, or in most cases, some combination thereof. Nova

Scotia and British Columbia also require that polling-‐day registrants fill out an

application form. The requirement that registrants provide, for example,

government-‐issued identification, proof of address and a written declaration – or

some other such combination of supporting documentation – could mitigate any

46

additional risk of electoral fraud without significantly impeding the increase in

accessibility that would accompany the adoption of EDR in Québec.

Flexibility of Ordinary Residence

The mobility of post-‐secondary students poses another challenge: if students are

frequently changing residences, and even changing electoral districts, where are

they allowed to cast their ballot? The variety of post-‐secondary education programs

available makes this problem particularly daunting. On the one hand, some students

pursue weeks-‐long technical programs. On the other hand, there are students who

take more than four years to pursue a full degree program. There are other

complicating factors as well. Some students move back to their parents’ electoral

district for all or part of the summer, while others do not. Some students intend to

move back to their parents’ home after completing their program, while others

intend to stay in the electoral district in which they live during their studies. Others

still do not intend to set up long-‐term residence in either location. Because of this

complicated set of circumstances, there are students for whom it is more

appropriate to vote in the electoral district in which they study, and others for

whom it is more appropriate to vote in their “home” riding.

Electors in all jurisdictions are allowed to cast a ballots only in the electoral district

in which they reside. When it comes time for an election, where are students

deemed to reside? The legislation governing elections in each jurisdiction gives

47

some direction on how to determine a voter’s ordinary residence, but there is a

great deal of variation between them with respect to how they accommodate post-‐

secondary students.

Canada is the only jurisdiction studied where the Elections Act does not provide any

specific guidance on how to determine the ordinary residence of post-‐secondary

students. The Canada Elections Act stipulates that “The place of ordinary residence

of a person is the place that has always been, or that has been adopted as, his or her

dwelling place, and to which the person intends to return when away from it”

(Canada, 2000: s. 8). It also states that a temporary absence from the place one

ordinarily resides does not constitute a change in ordinary residence. With so little

guidance, it is difficult to interpret how the act was intended to treat the ordinary

residence of students. According to Elections Canada, however, students are allowed

to choose whether their family home or their home-‐while-‐studying is their ordinary

residence (Canada, 2006).

The statutes of three jurisdictions – Alberta, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia –

explicitly seek to prevent students from voting in the electoral district in which they

study. In Alberta, the Elections Act states that any student who “temporarily rents

accommodation for the purpose of attending an educational institution, and… has

family members who are ordinarily resident in Alberta and with whom the student

ordinarily resides when not in attendance at an educational institution… is deemed

to reside with those family members” (Alberta, 2000: s. 2). Again, it is unclear what

48

constitutes “temporarily” renting accommodation. It is also difficult to determine

where a student may vote if she previously resided with family members in Alberta,

but does not return her previous home at any time during the year and does not

intend to return after completing her program. Newfoundland’s legislation also

leaves much room for interpretation. It stipulates that Newfoundland residents who

move for the purpose of pursuing a post-‐secondary education shall be deemed to

ordinarily reside in their former constituency “in the absence of evidence to the

contrary” (Newfoundland, 1991: s. 26). Again, it is unclear what to make of students

who have left their previous homes and who do not intend to return. Nova Scotia’s

legislation, though similarly restrictive, does gives some more precise direction:

“Where a person is an unmarried student having a family home in the Province to

which, when away, the person intends to return, the person is ordinarily resident

where that home is” (Nova Scotia, 1989: s. 31). Students who are not affected by that

provision – those who are married and those who do not intend to return to their

family home – are explicitly permitted to choose whether they are registered as

electors in their place of study or in their family’s constituency. Only one jurisdiction

has legislation that forces students to vote in the riding in which they study.

Manitoba’s Elections Act stipulates that a Manitoba resident who temporarily

resides in a constituency for the purpose of pursuing an educational program that is

at least six months long is deemed to be an ordinary resident of that constituency

upon arrival.

49

The six remaining jurisdictions – British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince

Edward Island, Québec and Saskatchewan – all have specific provisions that allow

students to choose between the electoral district where they live to study and the

one in which they previously resided. The Québec legislation is particularly

permissive: “An elector who temporarily leaves his domicile to work or to study in

another electoral precinct may be considered to be domiciled either in the polling

subdivision of his domicile or in that where he resides for the purposes of his work

or studies” (Québec, 1989: s. 3). Although the language in the legislation differs, the

five other jurisdictions listed allow a similar degree of flexibility in the declaration of

ordinary residence; students are free to decide the electoral district in which they

will be eligible.

Given that Canadian students span such a wide range of living arrangements, it is

difficult to employ a one-‐size-‐fits-‐all policy for the determination of ordinary

residence. The student who lives in the electoral district in which she studies for the

duration of a full degree program, and who does not intend to move back into her

family home for any significant length of time upon completion, is likely to be more

invested in – and more knowledgeable of – the riding in which she studies. To force

that student to vote in the electoral district in which her family home is located

amounts to partial disenfranchisement. Similarly, a student who pursues a single

semester at a post-‐secondary institution in one constituency, but who intends to

return to his family home in another, is likely less motivated to vote in the electoral

district in which he studies. The straightforwardness of those two hypothetical

50

examples belies the complexity of the situation, but the fact remains that restricting

students in their declaration of ordinary residence has the potential to prevent

many thousands of students from casting a ballot where it would be most

appropriate for them to do so. Furthermore, the more common type of restriction,

forcing students to vote in the place of their family home, can increase the number

of students casting a ballot in an electoral district far away from where they

currently reside, which (as we will discover below,) can be a costly endeavour. In

many cases, students must either travel to the electoral district to which they’re

assigned or cast a special ballot. Those options both significantly increase the

indirect costs of voting. Additionally, students must be aware of the limitations on

their declaration of residence well in advance if they wish to make use of either.

Although they are unexplored in the academic literature, the limitations that

Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia place on the declaration of

ordinary residence can be expected to have a negative effect on electoral

participation. They also deny a large (albeit as-‐yet-‐unmeasured) number of students

the right to vote in the electoral district where it would be most appropriate for

them to have a say, thereby decreasing the perceived benefits of participation for

students. The comparable legislation in Canada in is silent on students’ ordinary

residence, which at least allows Elections Canada to use greater discretion in

determining ordinary residence. Nevertheless, Canada’s rules for determining

ordinary residence only facilitate student voting to the extent Elections Canada

consistently allow students to choose their place of residence. There is reason to

51

speculate that electoral participation would be best stimulated by adopting

legislation that explicitly allows students to choose between their place of study and

their previous home as their ordinary residence, as British Columbia, New

Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Québec and Saskatchewan have done.

The disadvantages of adopting flexible residence rules for students appear to be

minimal. Liberalizing ordinary residence rules would not force any of the electoral

management bodies in question to adopt any dramatic new procedures. Students

could be registered for the appropriate constituency through existing means. Voting

could also be accommodated by existing means – either by granting special ballots

or by allowing advance or ordinary polls to accommodate voters from other

electoral districts. Every jurisdiction already has at least one of these options in

place to accommodate at least some of the voters who are absent from their

constituency of ordinary residence. Furthermore, this measure would enhance,

rather than detract from, the legitimacy of the electoral process. Critics who see

students as uninvested temporary residents might complain about students diluting

the votes of more long-‐term residents, but that objection seems to apply a double

standard: long-‐term residents would (hopefully) be reluctant to advocate for

denying the franchise to non-‐students, even if those non-‐students were new to the

riding.

All of the jurisdictions in question already have measures in place to ensure that

those who vote by advance poll or by special ballot are prevented from using any

52

further voting opportunity, so there is little additional risk of double-‐voting. At the

same time, allowing students to vote in the constituency in which they feel it most

appropriate to do so will likely create a greater sense of enfranchisement. The net

effect of flexible ordinary residence requirements on the legitimacy of elections

would almost certainly be positive: the increase in real and perceived legitimacy

that would accrue from the full enfranchisement of students would outweigh the

loss of perceived legitimacy among a handful of disgruntled long-‐term residents.

Absentee Voting Options

As the last section has made clear, there are many students in Canada who, whether

by compulsion or by choice, must cast their ballots in geographically distant

electoral districts. For those students, the costs of electoral participation are partly

determined by the range of available absentee voting procedures. For the purpose of

this study, absentee voting procedures include all of those procedures by which an

elector may vote without being physically present in the polling district in which her

ballot is to be counted. Those procedures vary dramatically between jurisdictions.

In all eleven jurisdictions, there are provisions in place for at least some electors to

vote from afar by special ballot. A special ballot is one that the elector must apply for

in advance, and which the elector may cast by post or by other means of delivery.

There is some inter-‐jurisdictional variation in the availability of special ballots. In

Canada, Ontario and Nova Scotia, special ballots are available to any elector. Other

53

provinces place at least minor restrictions on the availability of special ballots.

Although details and verification procedures vary, Alberta, British Columbia,

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island all

grant special ballots to electors who expect to be absent from the electoral district in

which their vote is to be counted. Of the eleven jurisdictions considered, only

Québec places severe restrictions on the availability of special ballots; only electors

who are absent from the province may vote by special ballot. Any elector within

Québec who is eligible to vote in a distant electoral district in the province has no

recourse but to appear in that electoral district in person, either for an advance poll

or for regular polling day.

There is also some variation in the application deadlines for special ballots. In

Alberta and New Brunswick, the deadline to apply for a special ballot is constrained

only by the requirement that the ballot be completed and returned by a given time

on polling day. Other jurisdictions require electors to apply for special ballots before

a certain deadline, ranging from four hours before the close of polls on polling day

(British Columbia) to nineteen days before polling day (Québec).

Although special ballots are available to all absentee voters outside of Québec, there

are some jurisdictions that go to much greater lengths to accommodate the casting

of ballots in other districts. For example, both British Columbia and Manitoba allow

voters who are absent from their electoral district of residence to cast a ballot at an

advance polling station in any other electoral district in the province. In those

54

provinces, a student who is in the province but is temporarily away from her place

of ordinary residence can arrive at any advance poll, register on-‐site and cast her

vote.

In British Columbia, absentee electors are even afforded the opportunity to vote at

any polling station in the province on the regular polling day. In their most recent

provincial election, over 12,000 British Columbians made use of this option, while

nearly 4,000 cast absentee ballots at advance polls. These two voting options made

up approximately one per cent of the total votes cast in that election (British

Columbia, 2009: 24). With this option in place, students within British Columbia

may observe the election campaign in its entirety before casting a ballot for the

appropriate electoral district.

In their most recent election, Elections New Brunswick made a similar option

available for post-‐secondary students in particular. New Brunswick’s Elections Act

gives the Chief Electoral Officer the authority to approve special “additional” polls in

certain locations, including on “a university or college campus” (New Brunswick,

1973: 68). Elections New Brunswick uses special ballots to accommodate students

who deem it more suitable to vote in another electoral district. New Brunswick’s

legislation allows for special ballots to be issued and cast until 8:00pm on polling

day, so a student who arrives at the on-‐campus polls before that time can cast one

on-‐site. According to New Brunswick’s Chief Electoral Officer (New Brunswick,

2010), New Brunswick adopted on-‐campus polls after consultation with student

55

groups. Those polls were designed to anticipate some of the specific challenges

faced by student electors:

Registered students… have the right to vote for candidates in the electoral district in which he or she ordinarily resides, or in the electoral district in which he or she resides while attending the school. Advance or ordinary polling stations do not permit students to vote for candidates in other electoral districts, making them a poor fit for students. In addition, students found it difficult to travel to polling stations or to returning offices. The satellite offices were located on the campus, in a location easily accessible by students. These offices provided the full range of service available from the parent returning office, including the ability to register or update one’s names on the List of Electors, and the ability to vote using a special ballot, for any electoral district in the province (New Brunswick, 2010: xx).

Because students are so mobile, there are many students for whom it would be most

reasonable to cast an absentee ballot. The procedures in place for absentee voters

can be placed on a continuum from least accessible to most accessible. Elections are

least accessible (or rather, completely inaccessible) to absentee voters in Québec,

for whom there is no recourse. They are somewhat more accessible in Canada,

Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and

Newfoundland, where absentee voters can cast special ballots. The costs of casting a

special ballot vary according to the procedures and deadlines for the application for,

pickup of, and delivery of those ballots. In general, though, this is a relatively high-‐

cost method of voting. In many cases, students must learn the rules for special

balloting well in advance of the election. Compared to regular polling opportunities,

the information on special balloting procedures is not as well publicized.

Furthermore, students who vote by special ballot are prevented from observing the

entirety of the campaign, which increases the information costs associated with

56

choosing a candidate. Finally, those who must vote by special ballot are not able to

take advantage of the many social cues associated with a single, common day of

voting.

British Columbia and Manitoba make voting more accessible still by allowing

absentee voters to vote at advance polls in any electoral district. Again, the

information costs associated with advance polls are somewhat higher than regular

polling; their dates and locations tend to be less heavily publicized, and they force

voters to cast a ballot before the end of the campaign period. Most districts also set

up far fewer advance polls, which means that they are often more geographically

distant. However, the process of voting in and advance poll is relatively simple

compared to special ballots. Voters simply arrive at the polls, register if necessary,

and cast a ballot on-‐site.

The jurisdictions that do the most to facilitate absentee voting are British Columbia

and New Brunswick. In those provinces, absentee voters can take advantage of all of

the publicity and informal social cues leading up to the day of regular polling. They

can also observe the entire campaign before voting, thereby reducing information

costs. Students likely have to travel shorter distances to vote, and voting procedures

are straightforward. In effect, the additional costs associated with absentee voting

are substantially reduced. Although each province has its advantages, the student-‐

centered approach adopted by Elections New Brunswick is likely the most

57

accessible to students. Students may cast absentee ballots from the very university

and college campuses that they attend on a daily basis.

The tradeoffs associated with accessible absentee voting procedures are difficult to

assess. The accessibility-‐enhancing measures examined in the previous sections –

Election Day Registration and flexibility of ordinary residence – could likely be

implemented without great difficulty or cost. Enhancing accessibility for absentee

voters may not be as straightforward. To establish the most student-‐friendly EA

regime, which would include the opportunity to cast absentee ballots on campus on

regular polling day, that electoral management body responsible would have to pay

for staff to make arrangements with the school or student association, to set up the

poll and to staff it on election day. It is beyond the scope of this study to perform a

full assessment of those costs for each jurisdiction, but one can reasonably assume

that they far from negligible. Furthermore, each jurisdiction that expands absentee

voting opportunities must establish a set of procedures to prevent double-‐voting

and to reduce any other associated risks of electoral fraud.

However, any additional costs incurred by improving absentee voting measures

should be considered in light of the anticipated benefits of student electoral

participation. Chapter 1 included a discussion of the concept of voter inertia.

Available evidence suggests that, in order to encourage a long-‐term trend of

electoral participation, reforms should be targeted at those who are experiencing

their first two or three election cycles. Those who fail to vote in those elections have

58

shown little tendency to commence voting later in life. Because so many of Canada’s

newly eligible voting population is made up of students, electoral participation

among students should be prioritized. It seems appropriate, therefore, to

recommend that absentee voting opportunities be expanded, despite the potential

for moderate cost increases.

Interactions Between Measures

Although this Chapter has been divided into distinct sections, readers should bear in

mind the interactions between registration deadlines, ordinary residence rules and

absentee voting opportunities. An Albertan student may have trouble voting in the

appropriate electoral district due to Alberta’s restrictive residency rules, but that

student may still vote in the district of her family home by applying for a special

ballot. A Québec student will find it much easier to declare ordinary residence at the

address where she lives during her studies, but if she is visiting her family home

during the election period, she will be unable to cast a ballot in the district in which

she ordinarily resides. For greater clarity, Table 1 illustrates the availability of

student-‐accessible procedures by jurisdiction.

60

Chapter 5 – Conclusion and Recommendations Canada’s declining voter turnout is a troubling trend, and despite various scholarly

attempts to account for it, its causes are poorly understood. It is probably best seen

as the result of a complex combination of forces, including underlying cultural

attitudes, a shifting political landscape, and the inertia or learned voting behaviours.

And while changes to electoral administration may have played a significant role,

there is little reason to believe that EA is, in any robust sense, the root cause of

turnout decline. It is more likely that turnout decline will be one of the root causes

of administrative reform. In their study of non-‐voters, Pammett and Leduc conclude

that “an effective response to this trend will require more than short-‐term, small-‐

scale reform measures” (2003: 2). Strikingly low turnout figures have forced civic-‐

minded Canadians to consider all of the tools at their disposal, including EA.

Although the literature linking administration and turnout is still poorly developed,

it can be used to demonstrate with confidence that administrative reforms can be

used to boost voter participation by removing barriers. Changing electoral rules and

practices to make elections more accessible and more inclusive can tilt the scale for

61

citizens who would not have voted, and eliminate some of the impediments for

citizens who could not have voted.

This is especially true of Canada’s post-‐secondary students. Students face some of

the steepest barriers to participation. At the same time, many of them have grown

up in a generation where abstention is the norm. Reforms can take advantage of the

common features of student life in order to target this huge portion of young

electors. Targeting newly eligible voters – a category that includes the majority of

post-‐secondary students – will be a necessary part of any serious strategy to reverse

the current decline. Policymakers and opinion leaders who hope to tackle this issue

in their lifetimes cannot afford to let another generation of Canadians develop habits

of electoral non-‐participation.

The comparative analysis in Chapter 4 reveals a number of specific administrative

reforms that could substantially increase the accessibility of elections for Canadian

students. By removing impediments to student participation, these reforms would

open up the process to a group that is currently on the margins of electoral politics,

making elections more inclusive. At the same time, they could increase inclusiveness

within the student population by making elections more accessible to those subsets

of the student population who face the most significant barriers, including poor

students, students of low socio-‐economic status, students with high residential

mobility, students who lack access to transportation, and students living or studying

in environments that are information-‐poor. If those goals can be achieved without

62

sacrificing the integrity the election process, they will make elections more

legitimate.

One of those reforms is the implementation of election day registration. EDR is

already in place at the national level, and in every province except for Québec.

Although the benefits of implementing EDR might be modest in a province that

conducts a pre-‐election enumeration, the disadvantages are negligible. Given the

ease with which Québec could liberalize registration deadlines, the maintenance of

the status quo is indefensible.

A reform that would likely have a much greater impact is the liberalization of

ordinary residence requirements. By preventing students from voting in the

electoral district in which they feel they belong, Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland

and Nova Scotia are imposing both practical and symbolic barriers to student

participation. All of those provinces, along with the government of Canada, should

adopt legislation that explicitly allows students to choose between the place of their

family home and the place of their home-‐while-‐studying as their electoral district of

ordinary residence.

Finally, governments should take the necessary steps to ensure that the facilitation

of absentee voting. Because of their mobility, many students find themselves away

from the constituency in which they should be voting at election time. Making

special ballots more accessible is a step in the right direction, especially for student

63

who are out of the province and cannot take advantage of other options. More

helpful are advance polls that allow for absentee voting. However, the importance of

facilitating the student vote should compel governments in Canada to allow for

convenient absentee voting on polling day. They can do so by adopting the BC model

– allowing all citizens to cast absentee ballots at any poll – or the New Brunswick

model – setting up dedicated on-‐campus polling stations to deal with the particular

barriers facing students.

Perhaps most importantly, governments have a responsibility to take a more

proactive approach to youth electoral engagement. A full understanding of the issue

of turnout decline reveals that engaging youth is crucial. Administrative reform is

but one way of achieving that goal, but it is one that government should be pursuing.

Governments can look to the New Brunswick example as a model: recognizing that

there was a problem, elections officials consulted with students to find an

appropriate solution, which led to a student-‐friendly solution to many

administrative problems. This approach will require some effort and some

spending, but the importance of finding a solution outweighs those costs.

The reader should bear in mind that this study is limited in scope. There are dozens

of other measures that could be pursued within the broad category of EA. Elections

agencies could consult with students’ associations, legislation could allow for on-‐

campus polls, enumeration and education campaigns could be directed at student-‐

heavy neighbourhoods, and the like. Even if all of those changes are implemented,

64

EA is not a panacea. Researchers need to explore – and activists and policymakers

need to pursue – other avenues as well. These might include civics education,

electoral reform, political reform and more.

The administrative reforms suggested herein are merely a first step, but they are an

important first step, and one that should be taken without delay.

65

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