Driving into work on Tuesday (Nov. 22), I glanced to the side of the highway and was pleased to see some of the lush greenery for which Squamish is so renowned.
Gone were the signs, the promises and the platforms. Quite frankly, it was nice to finally get rid of the eyesores (props to Nate Dolha and Susan Chapelle for running sign-free campaigns).
But making my way down the highway is when it really hit me: The election was finally over.
No more campaigning, no more meet-and-greets and no more never-ending debates on Facebook groups.
However, looking at the dismal voter turnout for this election, it begs the question: Did anyone even notice the signs? Based on the numbers, either they weren't effective or the majority of Squamish residents don't really care about who is making the decisions in this town.
The 2011 election saw a pathetic 39.2 per cent turnout and it's part of a disturbing downward trend of voters failing to show up to the polls. Less than a decade ago, in 2002, Squamish had an impressive 62.5 per cent do their civic duty, but since then the numbers continue to plummet.
In 2005, there was a significant dropoff, to 44 per cent, and it continued in 2008 when only 41.9 per cent took part. This year, with all the signs, the social media talk, the election videos from MySquamish.com and our coverage in The Chief, it managed to drop more than two per cent.
It boggles the mind, especially when you look at our neighbours to the north in Whistler and see that they had a 54 per cent turnout. Squamish even fares poorly when compared to places with roughly the same size voter pool like Powell River (43.5 per cent turnout) and Salmon Arm (39.4 per cent turnout).
The stats weren't made available at the time of this column but I look forward to the breakdown of the numbers by different age groups. Just like almost any election these days, it's likely that the youth vote was almost entirely non-existent. Governments have bemoaned the lack of young people coming to the polls for years, but haven't done much about it besides twiddle their thumbs.
Could it be any more obvious that online voting needs to be implemented as soon as humanly possible? Municipal elections need to reach out to voters and make it as easy as possible to participate.
Thankfully, Elections B.C. Chief Electoral Officer Keith Archer seems to agree. He recommended several changes including online voting and lowering the voting age to 16.
Personally, I think both ideas are great and anything that can get more people more involved in our democracy is a good thing.
Hopefully, three years from now we won't see the sides of the highway overrun with signs and other election-related material.
In its place it'd be nice to see more mouse clicks and far fewer images of smiling candidates, empty promises and tired slogans.
