To a significant degree, the strength of our democracy rests on the integrity of the voting process and on the broadest possible voter participation. That's why it's important for Canadians to pay close attention when changes in the way we vote are proposed and/or implemented.
A number of recent examples spring to mind, including the B.C. government's recent decision to conduct the upcoming HST referendum -ballots go out on Monday (June 13) - entirely by mail. From the standpoint of promoting high voter turnout and participation, the practice is a questionable one. According to a group called IntegrityBC (www.integritybc.ca), the State of Oregon has seen a continual decline in voter turnout since introducing vote-by-mail, and in California, when elections included referenda or initiatives, those who voted in person were much more likely to vote on those issues than those who mailed in their ballots.
"While mail-in ballots may be cost-effective, they don't produce a higher turnout by those who normally abstain, or provide a fair representation of all voting groups in a society," IntegrityBC said in a statement. The group also questioned the B.C. Liberals' decision to conduct the referendum vote during the summer and the wording of the question (a "Yes" vote is required if you're against the HST).
Officials in other B.C. communities, including Whistler, are considering whether to implement the mail-in ballot in time for municipal elections this November. There are a lot of variables to consider - not the least of which is the cost. Shannon Story, that municipality's chief electoral officer, told the Whistler Question recently, "The ballot package is quite extensive because it has verification envelopes and whatnot. It's a lot of documents and it's not a cheap package to mail."
The most important factors, though, should always be what's best for the promotion of voter participation and ensuring the integrity of the process. People have a high degree of trust in a process in which they can walk into a room and see the voting apparatus and the people administering the vote; that trust, though, declines when it's perceived that it's all taking place days or weeks later in some darkened room. If the mail-in ballot is to be adopted, steps must be taken to ensure that the process can be trusted to an equal or greater degree than current one.
Then there's the ongoing proposal from business interests - the B.C. Chamber of Commerce recently reiterated its support for the measure - to restore the business vote in municipal elections that was repealed in B.C. in 1993. The pro-business vote lobby's argument is essentially, "no taxation without representation" - that municipal governments have the authority to levy taxes on business owners (in most cases at several times the rate of residential property owners), but that not all business owners live in the town where their business is located.
This is a different animal than the aforementioned issues, but again, it all boils down to maximizing both voter turnout and integrity of the process. Certainly not all business owners are wealthy, but the proportion business owners who fall into the higher income brackets is greater than that of the general population. There's already a strong perception that the rich and powerful have greater influence over decisions than do others, and restoring the business vote would only increase that perception and further erode trust in our democracy.
- David Burke
