Elections Canada

Memo to the Chief Electoral Officer

Elections Canada

The youth turnout in the elections is increasingly interested for the researchers, both domestically and internationally. Elections Canada has contributed to the understanding of the issue by his own studies and by commissioning academic research. The following is a summary of key findings. "(P. 1)

1 - Trends in youth participation: for some time, young people vote in lower numbers than older citizens. Indeed, studies show that "the turnout at the 2000 general election was only 22.4% among 18-20 year olds, but it exceeded 80% among voters over 58 years "(p. 1). Moreover, it seems that the desire to participate decreases with time, instead of being only a temporary phenomenon as part of "life cycle" whereas before participation increased as the young grew older, the current decline seems rather to be due to a "generational effect". For this reason, there is no evidence that young people are more likely to vote in a few years. International research shows that the decline in participation among young people is not unique to Canada and that education and age are factors that greatly influence participation (Anderson & Stephenson, 2010).

2 - The factors underlying the decline in voter turnout: several factors may be attributable to the decline in voter turnout among young people. "First, it does not appear that the decline in youth participation stems primarily political cynicism.”(P. 2) Indeed, this sentiment is more pronounced among older citizens as well as perception of a lack of competition between political parties. Youth seem to have an increased tendency to political apathy, find politics uninteresting and boring. The decline in youth participation could also be attributed to their lack of political knowledge and their level of "civic knowledge", which is relatively low in Canada compared to other Western democracies. It ...