Although the scope of this website is for now usually limited to federal elections, your Guide is visiting Alberta and British Columbia this Canada Day long weekend, and happened across an excellent series of features in the Calgary Herald that readers might find interesting.

"Black Mark: Why We Don't Vote" is an in-depth look at why voter turnout (that's the percent of people on the voters list who actually cast a vote) hit an all-time low of 41.3% in Alberta during the recent provincial election.

To quote from the lead story, penned by Renata D'Aliesio and Jason Fekete:

Alberta gave the country Senate reform, spawned several historical political movements and helped women gain the right to vote.

But can the province with the lowest turnout in Canada rescue itself from a disturbing new trend -- where more than half of its population decides not to mark an X at the ballot box? This is the question confounding politicians, pundits and pollsters as the electorate grapples with the stark fact that six in 10 Albertans didn't vote in the March election. It's believed to be the worst showing ever in a provincial campaign.

Leaders from municipal councils to the House of Commons worry a troubling trend is emerging across the country as more people disengage from the democratic process.

"We Canadians sometimes take our democracy for granted, but we don't realize how unique we are," Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the Herald in an editorial column to be published Sunday.

The Prime Minister was joined by Preston Manning, and other prominent Albertans and academics in contributing their perspectives on why turnout was low in the last provincial election, and how it might be increased, and included the results of a poll commissioned by Elections Alberta exploring people's reasons for non-participation.

So, how can we use the Pundits' Guide to look at Voter Turnout in Federal Elections?

• Nationally -- The summary chart at the top of the "Browse Elections" page shows us the three relevant numbers for all the general elections in the guide:
• (a) "Electors" - the number of people eligible to vote, by virtue of citizenship, residency and age,
• (b) "Voted" - the number of electors who voted, and
• (c) "% TO" - where TO stands for "Turnout"; it is calculated as (b) - Voted divided by (a) - Electors and then multipled by 100 (for further information, see the description on the Pundit Metrics page).
• Broken down by Electoral Event -- Still on the "Browse Elections" page, and looking down the left-hand column of the "Election Summary Data" tab, you will see the Percent Turnout (% TO) for every electoral event, including by-elections as well as general elections. For example, the electoral events with the lowest turnouts in recent history (that means with the lowest turnout in this database, i.e., since 1997) were:
• the June 16, 2003 By-elections (at just 25.7%) in the ridings of QC: Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière (23.5%), and QC: Témiscamingue (29.2%)
• the November 15, 1999 By-Elections (at 28.1% TO) in the ridings of ON: York West (27.4%), QC: Hull – Aylmer (25.4%), QC: Mount Royal (27.5%), and SK: Saskatoon – Rosetown – Biggar (33.7%), and
• the March 17, 2008 By-elections (28.0%), which have been covered extensively in this blog already.
• Broken down by Region, Province or lower -- Still on the "Browse Elections" page, notice the drop-downs and list-boxes to the left of the chart. Select a province from the drop-down list, and notice that all the calculations have been re-done for just that province (let's pick Prince Edward Island, for example). Turnout there jumped from 70.8% in the 2004 General Election to 73.2% in the 2006 General. Now let's select a different province (I guess we ought to look at Alberta then). Notice that turnout in federal elections in Alberta has varied between 58.5% and 61.9%. And in fact, the by-election that returned Stephen Harper to Ottawa as an M.P. showed only a 23% turnout in the lone Alberta riding voting that day, namely Harper's riding of AB: Calgary Southwest (although the Liberal party did not field a candidate in that race).
• Broken down by Riding -- The riding profile page for any riding shows the history of its voter turnout for each electoral event. For example, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC on the West Island of Montréal had the highest turnout in 1997, Cardigan, PE had the highest turnout in both the 2000 and 2004 General Elections, while Nepean – Carleton, ON, currently represented by Conservative M.P. Pierre Poilievre, had the highest voter turnout in the 2006 General Election.

Anyway, I can see that it would be nice to have a Turnout by Province by Electoral Event cross-tabulation table somewhere (likely the "Search Data" page), for comparisons' sake. There also needs to be a new Election Pundit Query about ridings with the highest and lowest turnouts. For now, have fun exploring the data on turnout currently available throughout the Pundits' Guide.

Labels: 2_How to Search the Database, Voter Turnout