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RADIA: Low voter turnout calls for action

FACE TO FACE: Should lists of voters be published after an election? I have to hand it to former Tri-City News Face to Face columnist, and now Coquitlam city councillor, Terry O'Neill for thinking outside the box when it comes to addressing the probl

FACE TO FACE: Should lists of voters be published after an election?

I have to hand it to former Tri-City News Face to Face columnist, and now Coquitlam city councillor, Terry O'Neill for thinking outside the box when it comes to addressing the problem of voter turnout.

Recently, the rookie councillor introduced a motion asking his colleagues to support the idea of publicizing the names of people who vote in elections.

Currently, municipal governments in British Columbia make public a record of all voters who cast ballots for eight weeks after the election. But members of the public are only allowed to view the list in person at city hall and are not allowed to make photocopies.

O'Neill's idea is to publicize the names, permanently, on the city's website or even as a supplement in a local newspaper. He calls it a sort of "positive reinforcement and says that it's akin to publicizing the names of the winners of the latest hospital lottery or participants in the Sun Run.

"It's about celebrating those who vote and having a positive impact on those who don't vote," he said in a recent interview.

"[A non-voter] might say: 'Holy mackerel, I should get myself on the list. Because you know what? I'm one of those barroom philosophers who spouts off all the time about this, that and that and then people see that I'm not voting.'

"All of the sudden their point of view doesn't have the credence it otherwise might have had."

It's an idea that deserves consideration, not just municipally, but at all levels of government.

Over the past several years, the powers that be have tried get-out-the-vote campaigns, vote mobs and, in some jurisdictions, online voting as a means to increase turnout. To date, those initiatives have all failed.

Unlike my colleague opposite, I believe that a lack of citizen engagement is something we need to address. At the local level, at least, if enough people aren't voting, we risk having special-interest groups hijack our city councils.

In the last year's municipal election in the city of Coquitlam, only 21%of eligible voters bothered going to the polls.

Like Terry O'Neill, I think it's time to try some outside-of-the-ballot-box thinking.

Andy Radia is a Coquitlam resident and political columnist who writes for Yahoo! Canada News and Vancouver View Magazine. He has been politically active in the Tri-Cities, having been involved with election campaigns at all three levels of government, including running for Coquitlam city council in 2005.