2005 Election

The 2005 Election consisted of some very interesting statistics, that become more interesting when looked at through a historic view. - My statistics come from Elections BC.

Each of the Elections dating from 1983 to 2009 has shown a steady decline in the voter turnout. In 1983 the voter turnout was at 77.66% and has steadily declined in each following election to the last election in 2009 that reached a record low of 55.14%, over 20% points lower than in 1983.These are percentages of the registered voters, not eligible voters.  If we look at the stats of the eligible voters the turnout is much lower, in 1983 the turnout percentage of eligible voters was 70.50% and in 2009 eligible voter turnout was 50.99%.

If one is unsure why we have two voter lists, the eligible voters includes everyone in the province that is eligible to vote at elections, the registered voters is the list of voters who have registered to vote from the eligible voter list. I admit it is somewhat redundant having two lists. If we have a list of eligible voters, why is this list not considered the registered list. I suspect the eligible list is more of a estimate of eligible voters and to have another list of registered voters is a way of confirming the list of voters. A eligible voter can register to vote at the voting booth on election day.

In 1983 there was a large percentage of eligible voters that actually bothered to register on the registered voter list - 90.78% actually registered. The following elections this percentage of registered voters declined in each of the following elections, until 2005 when there was a surprising jump to 93.31% of eligible voters actually registered. I do not have this stat for the 2009 election. In 2001 this percentage had dropped to 77.14% then in 2005 we have this big jump in registered voters.

With such a large spike in registered voters in 2005 one would think there would be a big spike in voter turnout. This is not the case and exactly the opposite occurred. In the 2001 election the percentage of registered voters that actually voted was 70.95%, in the 2005 election this declined to 62.36%  a full 8% points lower than the previous election.

The 2005 election had enough of our voting Citizens interested in registering to vote, but this did not follow through to the VOTING BOOTH. One has to ask, if there was enough interest for Citizens to register to vote and then why not vote? With such a large spike in registered voters over the 2001 election, I would expect a large spike in voter turnout or at least to stay fairly level with the 2001 turnout, not a 8% point decline from the 2001 election.

This did create another interesting stat in the 2005 election. With such a high percentage of registered voters and with such a low turnout created over 1,000,000 voters on the registered voter list that DID NOT CAST A BALLOT. This number of voters who choose not to vote is double the normal, usually there is between 300,000 to 400,000 voters that do not vote with the odd spike higher. If only 4% of these voters had voted in favour of BC-STV we would now have a NEW ELECTORAL SYSTEM.

These stats bring two questions to mind - what caused the original interest of the CITIZENS to register to vote? and why so many CITIZENS decide NOT TO VOTE? I will explore these two in my next two posts.