Election 2008 — Million More Voters Stay Home

Many chose to stay home. Compared to the previous election, voter turnout is down by about 1 million. Percentage-wise this could become the lowest voter turnout ever. Apart from the Greens, each major party (including those who won more seats and a higher share of the popular vote) ended up losing voters - from 72,000 (NDP) to over 800,000 (guess who).

No room for fringe parties. I'm not even talking about those one-candidate parties that have mushroomed since the court struck down the requirement for a minimum of 50 candidates. But even the largest fringe parties, those that took their time to nominate 20, 30 or even 60 candidates, saw most of their supporters either staying home or voting strategically. The only party to win more than 10,000 votes was the Christian Heritage Party. They won 26,700 votes - that's 3-5 times more than any other serious fringe party. But that's still some 1400-1500 votes less than in 2006.

When there's no real choice on the ballot...

I opened up my ballot and put a large “X” through all of the names.

Then I turned it over and made my own ballot:

It’s the first time that I have spoiled my ballot. Frankly, I didn’t like to do it much.

But the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, John Baird and the remainder of the political establishment didn’t leave me much choice.

So I voted for the unborn victim who is voiceless.

(John Pacheco)

The million voters that chose not to show up yesterday could have done just that. Hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballots, as well as hundreds of thousands of protest votes for fringe parties would have sent a far stronger message to all the major political parties than a record-low voter turnout. They chose to sit on the couch instead - well, they shouldn't complain if they find even fewer choices on the ballot come next election.