If you have any access to US television

stations, you have probably been using the mute button a lot

lately. As the US voters prepare to go

to the polls, the airwaves are polluted with non-stop

negativity. It is not just the Democrats

and the Republicans who are buying ad time to slam the other

guy. In addition to the hundreds of

millions they are spending, an estimated $284 million has been

spent by non-party groups, most of it to support Republicans. It looks as though those groups will spend

more in this season’s congressional races than they spent in the

2008 presidential race.

People who are knowledgeable about politics

say “going negative” works. Attack ads

are effective. It wasn’t until I was

researching my last book that I took the time to try to figure

out why. I hate the shift in our political culture to nasty and

ad hominem campaign advertising.

Everyone I know hates it. Every

audience I have addressed, in every town meeting, anywhere in

Canada, say they hate it too. So how on

earth does something everyone professes to hate keep getting

more prevalent?

In working on my book I found the research

from numerous experts on public opinion. Attack

ads work by driving down voter turn-out. Attack

ads discourage people from showing up to vote.

So, by definition, attack ads are

anti-democratic.

How does driving down voter turn-out help a

political party? Well, look at the 2008

election campaign. The nastiest ads were

run by Mr. Harper’s Conservative Party. If

you measure whether they “worked” by whether the Conservatives

got more votes, you would conclude they failed.

The Conservatives got approximately 170,000 fewer votes

in 2008 than in 2006.

So, no surprise, an attack ad that makes fun

of other politicians did not persuade voters to support the

party running the ad. The attack ads

helped the Conservatives because of the impact it had on the

voter base that supported the Liberals in 2006.

Over 700,000 fewer of them bothered to vote at all. Historically low voter turn-out helped Mr.

Harper’s party win more seats – with fewer votes.

Knowing this, I am really worried about the

next federal election campaign in Canada. With

every election, voter turn-out goes down. Regardless

of what party you support you should be very worried about the

erosion of democracy in reduced voter participation.

Why not ban paid television advertising in

elections? Why not keep an equal amount

of the public airwaves available for messages that explain

policy differences and disallow the carefully crafted negative

attacks? It has been done in many other

countries. The U.K., South Africa,

Brazil, Belgium, Switzerland, Chile, Sweden, Ireland, the

Philippines - the list is long. Canada

and the US stand out as practically the only countries with

access to buying TV ad time for political parties.

Some countries ban TV ads, but allow radio. Others ban

both.

Let’s have this conversation now. Let’s demand a ban on paid television

political advertisements, before and during the writ period. Think of it as an experiment.

If democracy is sick, let’s stop poisoning it and see if

things get better.

For more information about US non-party campaign ads, see NPR article 'Independent' Groups Behind Ads not so Independent