Evidence of meeting #26 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vouching.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for your help this evening.
I'll start with you, Professor Pammett. I see you've done fairly extensive research on voter turnout. I wanted to ask a couple of questions in regards to that. We had a previous witness who talked to us about some of the studies that he had done in terms of voter turnout. He found that the most important factor in voter turnout was someone's interest in politics. Would that line up with what you've found?
Professor, Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual
I don't want to get into the discussion that we would have if we were having a seminar in political science, where we debate the use of interest as an explanatory variable. In many ways, it simply pushes the explanatory question back one step—saying that if you don't do things because you're not interested in them, then why aren't you interested in them? It pushes it back.
I think the research on voter turnout—without going into it at great length—can be encapsulated to say that for many people, particularly young people, politics, elections, and voting is a kind of marginal activity. But the thing that you find if you look a lot closer is that it's not that young people—although this doesn't just apply to them—are determined not to be interested in politics, it's that they want to be given reasons why they should be.
In other words, what we're used to considering as the traditional civic duty that we have, that you have, and that my parents had—you did it because that's what you had to do.... We vote because everybody votes and we vote all the time. We simply vote to express ourselves, in a way. That is often being changed into a more conditional kind of duty. To say that people will do things if it matters, will do things if there's a good reason to, will do things if they're well informed, but not if they're not well informed. There are ways in which the information that's being provided can help to stimulate one's feeling that maybe they should get involved.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
If I can stop you, because I don't have a lot of time left.
One of the things that Elections Canada found was that when voters—young voters particularly—were contacted by a political party, there was a huge increase in their vote. That shows that we, as political parties, have a big role to play in that.
Professor, Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual
That's right.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Maybe we are failing at that as political parties, but we need to play our role.
Having said that, Elections Canada also found that when they looked at some of the reasons for young voters not voting, those practical problems were very high on that, as well. Not knowing where to vote was 25%, when to vote was 26%, and how to vote was 19%. Obviously, that was playing a big role.
So I would think that the focus in this bill on trying to ensure that Elections Canada does a better job in that role, focusing more on that role, will help to eliminate some of those things that are causing young people not to vote. Those are practical issues—simply not being aware of when, where, and how to vote. A significant problem has been identified. I would hope, and I would think—
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
—it would be good if Elections Canada could better perform in that role.
Any thoughts on that?
Professor, Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes.
As I mentioned to your colleague—
Professor, Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual
—I would fully support the transference of that kind of information. Once again, I don't see that it's necessarily in contradiction to urging people to take advantage of these opportunities.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you very much.
Ms. Latendresse, there are four minutes for you—about equal to Mr. Richards.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you.
The input from all three of you has been extremely informative. Thank you.
I'd like to continue along the same lines as my colleague.
I see a problem with the way the changes were made at Elections Canada and the way the Conservatives introduced those changes. The point was to improve how Elections Canada provides voters with information on where, when and how they can vote. That shouldn't exclude all other forms of communication between Elections Canada and voters.
Could all three witnesses comment on that?
Professor, Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual
I think I just did that.
Conservative
Professor, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, As an Individual
I would agree that there is a key communication role for all the reasons we've talked about. Of course, now it's through the social media, as well as through traditional media, where you have to get the information out to voters in real time and in a very timely fashion. Things like not allowing research to be published by Elections Canada is a real step backwards.
Again, the committee might want to look—for example—at the electoral commission in the United Kingdom, which has produced a series of exemplary research, in conjunction with scholars, on many issues, for example minority voting, on women and voting, on representation in Parliament, and many other issues such as electronic voting, and disability, and how far one can get over those issues as well.
So where you have good research that is funded by the taxpayer, the idea that it somehow can't enter the public deliberation, it can't be debated in Parliament because it's not known, it's only known to the government, I think is a real step backwards.
Associate Professor, Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
If I could just comment I would say that communication is extremely important. What we need to keep in mind is that the average person does not care about politics, pays no attention to it. Right now they're worried about getting their kids to bed, they're complaining about the snow, whatever. So unless you have somebody communicating actively with them, they're not thinking about politics.
Conservative
Professor, Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual
This question about whether voter mobilization or voter encouragement is necessarily in any contradiction to the providing of basic information about how to vote, if I'm interpreting that correctly—that question was mentioned by a couple of other people too—I think I've already said that I don't see any contradiction between the two.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
That's my position as well. It would be possible to require Elections Canada to provide that information to everyone without necessarily muzzling the agency in other areas.
One comment, in particular, that the Chief Electoral Officer made when he appeared before the committee definitely bears repeating: “It is essential to understand that the main challenge for our electoral democracy is not voter fraud, but voter participation.” And I completely agree. Anything that can be done to encourage people to vote and increase voter turnout should be.
Mr. Pammett, I read your report. You talk about the importance of voter turnout among young people. One of the problems is that young people may have no interest in voting. You indicate in your report that when political parties communicate with youth, it improves their turnout. I wholeheartedly agree, and we will continue to communicate with youth. But it's important not to take away Elections Canada's ability to convey to the public the importance of voting.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Madame Latendresse.
We're going to move to Mr. Lukiwski.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Only one minute and then I'll cede my time to my colleague, Mr. Opitz.
My question is to Professor Norris.
Professor, you had mentioned earlier in testimony that you had really not found any significant evidence of voter fraud in the United States or elsewhere. I've heard that same commentary from many other people.
I'm just reading from a news report that was posted yesterday from the North Carolina Board of Elections, which found that there were more than 35,000 incidents of double voting in the 2012 election, where there were people with the same first names, last names, and dates of birth who voted in North Carolina and voted in other states as well. In addition to that, they found between 40 and 50 instances of people who had been deceased who cast ballots.
I'm wondering if you can give me your reaction to that in light of your comments that you don't really have any evidence of voter fraud, at least in the United States?
Professor, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, As an Individual
Thanks, Mr. Opitz.
Again, there's been an enormous debate, as you know, in the last year about the issue of voter fraud and how extensive it is, so I'm drawing on some of the best research in the game. Lori Minnite has published an excellent book on the issue of electoral fraud. She studied it in great depth and she found that, yes, there were some errors, again, things like people registering in two places. It's quite easy, you get sent a card and you have two homes, so you put it in to make sure that you can actually vote in—
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
With respect, I'm sorry to interrupt. Professor, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Just a quick reaction, this is from the North Carolina State Board of Elections who said there was 35,000 examples of voter fraud, no reports from an outsider, these are their findings.
How do you react to that?
Professor, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, As an Individual
I'd need to look at their findings, their research, their evidence in particular to see what's going on—