Turnout Last Night

I hate to toss up yet another by election post because we shouldn't read too much into them. So rather than look at the results, I'll just add a final word on voter turn-out. Here's where it was yesterday:

Montmagny 36.6%
Cumberland-Colchester 35.7%
New Westminster Coquitlam 29.9%
Hochelaga 22.3%

The average turnout of 31.1% isn't much worse than the normal for by elections - since 1998, it's been 34.5%. And last night was actually an improvement on the dismal 27.8% turnout in last year's 4 by election.

The only number that really stands out is Hochelaga, where under 1 in 4 registered voters took the time to vote. I know it was a slam dunk election for the Bloc, but the riding was right around the national average in the last general election (58%), so it's surprising that it would get so low.

Especially when you look at it historically. Elections Canada only has turn out rates going back to 1998, but Hochelaga marks the lowest by election turn out over that time period (36 by elections) - making it, quite possibly, one of the lowest vote turn outs ever in a federal by election. Here were the previous lows:

Saint-Léonard–Saint-Michel (2003) - 22.9%
Calgary Southwest (2003) - 23.1% (in fairness, there weren't any good candidates to vote for in this one)
Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière (2003) - 23.5%
Willowdale (2008) - 24.4%
Denesthe-Missnipi-Churchill River (2008) - 25.0%

So what was the best by election turn out over that period, and the only time half the voters came out?

That would be the 2005 Labrador by election that sent Todd Russell to Ottawa in a rout, showing that it's not just a close by election that gets people to the polls. On the flip side, everyone expected Denesthe to be close last year and it still made the list of worst shows.

Democratic Peer Pressure

The people at freakonomics link to a detailed experiment on voter turn-out rates in the United States. In this case study, it was found that increased amounts of social pressure will increase voting rates. Here were the voter turn-out rates for the different groups:

Control: 29.7%
Civic Duty: 31.5% (sent a pamphlet telling them it was their civic duty to vote)
Hawthorne: 32.2% (got the same pamphlet and were told their turn-out rate was being studied)
Self: 34.5% (pamphlet included a list of who in their own household had voted last election and were told that a list of who voted this time would be sent to them after the election)
Neighbours: 37.8% (pamphlet included a list of who among their neighbours had voted last election and were told that a similar list would be distributed after the election)

So, we can see that the fear of others knowing they weren't voting increased voting turn out by 8.1%.

Now, I'm not sure public humiliation is necessarily the solution to voter apathy but in light of the 41% turn-out rate in Alberta, it certainly is interesting.