CALGARY—A handful of self-proclaimed doughnut enthusiasts want to inject some sweetness into the upcoming provincial election with a new campaign, Democracy Donuts, and it’s hoped to lure more people to the polls.

“Any additional incentive to give people encouragement to vote is a good one,” said Jason Krell, a cofounder of the group.

The effort includes a GoFundMe page to raise at least $2,500 so they can serve 200 doughnuts per day at advanced polls during the Alberta election. The campaign said it is non-partisan. But giving out food as an incentive to vote is a much less common practice in Canada and a political commentator said while she applauds the initiative to encourage more people to vote, it should be cautioned that initiatives like this could have an agenda behind it.

So far, the group has raised almost $700. When the election is called, five locations will be picked to hand out doughnuts to voters. The remaining funds after the campaign wraps up will be donated to CIVIX, a national non-profit dedicated to encourage youth to vote. However, the campaign is directed toward all voters, Krell said, with no specific demographic targeted.

He added it’s an attempt to keep up the “momentum” to encourage voting after Elections Alberta announced electors can cast an early ballot at any voting station province-wide. Elections Alberta said it is aware of the campaign and that it supports any initiative free of partisan bias that gets more voters out.

Krell said the idea started out as a joke after one of the founders, Mike Morrison, noticed a long line up of people waiting for pancakes at a Stampede breakfast last summer and wondered why people could make time for that, but not to vote during elections.

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“It’s just something really just for fun,” Krell said. “We just feel ... the state of politics in this province and all over the world has become so divisive and we thought, ‘Why not bring something that everybody can agree on,’ which is eating a doughnut.”

But food as an incentive to vote isn’t seen as often in Canada as it is in the United States. During the U.S. presidential election in 2016, there were multiple restaurants and pubs offering discounts and freebies to voters who came and showed their “I Voted” sticker.

There was also a flurry of deals to Americans who posted a selfie proving they voted during the 2016 election and a similar trend returned during the federal midterm election in November 2018.

In Canada though, there aren’t any stickers or items otherwise doled out to electors after voting federally, but some jurisdictions do. Natasha Gauthier, senior media relations with Election Canada said she doesn’t know of any voting conflicts to do with food giveaways during the 2015 federal election.

But Gauthier added that while there are strict rules as to who is permitted at voting stations (during federal elections) as long as the groups aren’t partisan — at least not on the surface — it’s allowed.

“If you had ... a Liberal candidate or their representative handing out red apples or a Conservative candidate or their representative handing out like blueberry muffins that were blue ... that could be perceived as partisan,” Gauthier said.

Your call!

Janet Brown, an independent pollster and political commentator in Alberta, said she doesn’t see anything wrong with the initiative and she applauds the group’s effort to increase voter turnout — as long as it doesn’t target one specific demographic.

“If this is about, you know, increasing voter turnout, that’s a really hard thing to criticize. I think everybody would argue that whatever we can do to increase voter turnout is a good idea,” said Brown, who compared it to the city’s attempts to get more voters out to the ballots during the 2017 municipal election.

“The city tried a few new things like drive-through voting stations and more opportunities to advance vote and things like that,” she said.

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“I see this as, you know, another way of motivating people and raising awareness of the opportunity to vote early.”

But she warned that campaign’s such as this could have other significance.

“On the other hand, it seems to me like it’s probably a tactic very specifically designed to get young voters out ... if you’re targeting young voters, it’s probably naive to think that you don’t have a political agenda,” Brown said. “I think most people would argue that, you know, if young people would get out to vote in bigger numbers, then the NDP would probably fair better.”

Still Krell maintains it isn’t the case — the campaign is hoped to reach all voters.

“I think the love of doughnuts is pretty universal.”

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