Elections Canada should stay out of “get out the (youth) vote” campaigns; stay neutral.

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Joel Johannesen
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A column by Chris Selley about Elections Canada and their plans to employ some of the cools from Youtube and the other internets to “get the vote out,” had some good points.

Elections Canada plan to boost youth vote with ‘non-partisan influencers’ is doomed to fail

… The turnout nerds at Elections Canada aren’t content with this, however. They are planning to harness the creative energies of 13 “influencers” — “Olympic athletes, television personalities, singer-songwriters and YouTubers,” The Globe and Mail reports — to try to encourage young people to register to vote, at a cost of $650,000.

I view “get out the vote” efforts with either deep suspicion or utter contempt. For one thing, they’re always after young voters. Why young and not old? Why you ask? Because except for a few gifted souls like me, young voters are notoriously left-wing voters, ranging from extreme left Marxists or socialists all the way up to to moderately left-wing liberals. And this is increasingly so. The older voters get, the more they learn things, and the more they abandon the left in embarrassment, and turn to the right, realizing they always should have been there. That’s why.

Selley sees other, similar problems, and has no trust in the neutrality of this at all. But I share Selley’s other take on not doing any of this “get out the (youth) vote” nonsense, which is that basically, if you aren’t interested enough to vote, then you simply shouldn’t.

Why would anyone vote if they don’t care? Why would we want them to? These are questions from an ancient debate between Turnout Nerds and Apathetics. They will never be answered. Elections Canada should stay out of it.

… or at least “get out the aged 50 and up vote,” as well.

Joel Johannesen
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