The Editor,
Re. "Voting is so important, we should make it mandatory" (editorial, Opinion, The Tri-City News, Oct. 10).
Your editorial, which asserts voting ought to be mandatory, prompts the following: What is the question to which making voting mandatory is the answer?
If declining voter turnout is viewed as a problem, making it mandatory is no doubt both a quick and easy way to address the issue.
But quick and easy answers often don’t adequately address complex issues. Many would argue that low voter turnout is not the problem but a symptom of something much more difficult to both diagnose and correct. Simply forcing people to go to the polls might even make matters worse.
Making voting mandatory will only lead to more Canadians casting a ballot, not that their vote is necessarily a more informed, interested or engaged one. Some might even suggest that only those who can pass a test that shows they know what the issues are and can differentiate one party’s platform from another should be allowed to vote.
Most voters are tired of the postering, lying, broken promises and other at best underhanded methods used by politicians to get elected. We are told one thing before the election and find that little promised beforehand becomes reality.
The pandering by our politicians to the lowest common denominator, the lack of any kind of statesmanlike behaviour, the lack of action on what the electorate considers top priority issues such as housing affordability and climate change have left voters jaded. Most have simply given up hope politicians can be trusted to do as they say.
Do you really believe forcing an electorate that is ill-informed, disinterested, disengaged and just plain unimpressed by the quality of people running for office is going to solve the problem of low voter turnout, and by extension result in better politics and politicians? Plaudits for your efforts to try to improve the electoral system, misguided though they are.
Horst Siegler, Port Moody
