A A

COLDBROOK, N.S. —

A strategy developed by a group of students from Dalhousie University could lead to a greater number of voters turning out to the polls in Kings County this October.

In preparation for the 2020 municipal election, a group of students from the Dalhousie University Management Without Borders program partnered with the Kings County municipal elections advisory committee to develop a voter outreach and engagement strategy.

The purpose is to increase voter turnout, particularly among eligible voters age 40 and under.

The six team members include Luke Van Horne, Jean-Luc Lemieux, Sam Mahoney-Volk, Chioma Azubike-Okoro, Krysta Sutton and Megan Pagniello. The students represent the disciplines of Public Administration, Environmental Studies and Library and Information Studies. Van Horne, Lemieux and Mahoney-Volk were on hand to make a presentation to Kings County council on Jan. 7.

Van Horne said voter turnout in Kings for the 2016 municipal election was 29.5 per cent, among the lowest turnouts in the province. He said the municipality has opted for a voter outreach and engagement strategy to help increase turnout for the 2020 election, as opposed to other possibilities such as electronic voting.

In Kings County, the 2020 municipal election will be conducted by traditional paper ballot. The earliest that electronic voting could be implemented would be 2024.

Lemieux pointed out that there isn’t any “one size fits all approach” but “many communities which have had success at increasing voter participation have frequently used the same tools.”

He said candidate involvement is very important when it comes to engaging voters. For example, in Calgary, voters can take selfies with candidates on election day and special events are held for citizens to meet their councillors.

Mahoney-Volk said the five categories of tools they’ve identified for increasing voter engagement are meant to work in conjunction with each other, not to stand alone. These include traditional outreach strategies; digital election outreach, candidate outreach, improved accessibility (such as providing public transportation to polling stations) and election day initiatives including visual cues to vote.

“Each of these are meant to be part of a larger strategy, combining them for the best possible result,” he said.

Mahoney-Volk said young people are more likely to vote if they feel a connection to a candidate. One of the easiest ways to form such a connection is for candidates to meet with young people and talk with them.

Mahoney-Volk agreed that perhaps holding municipal elections on Saturdays is negatively impacting voter turnout in Kings. However, the day of the week municipal elections are held is governed by provincial legislation and is outside the scope of the project.

“It definitely doesn’t help but it’s not necessarily something that can be fixed on the municipal level,” Mahoney-Volk said.

Lemieux said one thing he learned through the project that he found particularly interesting is the so-called “vote anywhere” model that Vancouver and the Halifax Regional Municipality are exploring.

Although this involves electronic voting, he said the ability to vote at any given physical polling station instead of at one specific location is something that he would also find very useful. Lemieux said this is a next step that would make sense, not only for municipal elections but for provincial and federal votes as well.

“It’s easier if you’re on an electronic registry and can vote anywhere,” he said.

PUTTING TOOLS TO WORK

County of Kings policy analyst Vicki Brooke said the municipal elections advisory committee has a copy of the student’s report and would be helping to plan for the 2020 election.

“We’re anticipating that, with some prior planning and thought put into it, that when the returning officer is in place, we can decide how to effectively use the recommendations from the team and what combination and in what form we’ll use those,” she said.

The students have provided an evaluation matrix to evaluate the effectiveness of the tools they’ve recommended. Brooke said the process of building a culture of voting and lifelong voting behaviours takes time. The project won’t result in 100 per cent voter turnout in October. She said the municipality would continue to use the tools to build voter numbers incrementally.

Coun. Jim Winsor said he believes the 2020 municipal election in Kings would see a greater voter turnout than in 2016, whether the municipality did anything differently or not.

This is because he views the current incarnation of council as having been more engaging of citizens than the previous incarnation. However, he would like to see efforts made to help boost the numbers.

Kirk.starratt@kingscountynews.ca

RELATED: