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Compare that to 2011, when just 2,335 voters or 0.05 per cent declined their ballots.

Whether the huge jump is a measure of increased voter dissatisfaction or the result of sometimes-controversial campaigns to increase awareness of the option to decline, however, was not immediately clear.

Duff Conacher of the advocacy group Democracy Watch believes many have long wanted to signal their unhappiness with candidates and parties, “and the media coverage and social media obviously made many more people aware of their right to do that.”

He’s convinced that many thousands more would do the same if the provincial elections agency publicized the option instead of burying it deep on its multi-page website. Likewise, he says, polling station posters that explain the process aren’t reaching the people who stay away because they don’t know it exists.

Democracy Watch plans a court challenge to attempt to force Elections Canada to properly educate voters, Conacher says.

Turnouts have been dropping in elections at all levels for decades, and while distractions and apathy are often cited as causes — people are too busy or too lazy to stop by their neighbourhood elementary school or church hall to mark their X — disenchantment is increasingly seen as another factor.

Yet efforts to encourage voters to officially register their distaste for the current slate by refusing their ballots have been met with suspicion. One school of thought on social media channels holds the campaigns are the work of groups or parties intent on maintaining the status quo and eliminating votes for rivals. Conacher, who has long pressed for reforms that would put “None of the above” on every ballot, calls the theory “completely illogical.”