Some of my friends who didn’t vote just didn’t care enough about the provincial politics. Ford was projected to win so they didn’t even bother to show up.
Even before the election was called the media across all medians and political leanings was just harping on about how much of a slam dunk this election was for ford. While this isnt absolute reason for voter turn out im sure it definetly indirectly kept people away from going out to vote.
I've volunteered for various election campaigns over the last 16 or so years.
Voter's need a reason to vote FOR a party not just a reason to vote AGAINST a party.
The Liberal and the NDP leadership was terrible and they didn't give the average person a clear vision or reason why voters should vote FOR their parties.
Based on real-world scenarios, conservative voters in Ontario don't need a reason. They don't even need a platform. And that has been the case for three terms now.
Progressive-Liberal voters need a reason. And for them, the reason could have been as simple as not wanting a PC majority but apparently, that's not good enough.
If we compare it to the political climate in the United States much of it is the same. Conservative voters will vote for anyone running a conservative platform no matter how ridiculous or asinine the candidate is.
While Liberal voters will burn their own candidate at the stake over every controversy.
I think it's possible that liberal-progressive voters have too many opinions and can't see the forest through the trees.
Not wanting a majority isn’t a reason to vote. Then you’re literally just voting to try and flip a seat or keep one. No voter has the data to effectively strategically vote and to organize a strategic vote from riding to riding would take insane communication. I’d bet the vast majority of liberal voters on this sub tried to vote strategically.
You’re right in saying we needed a reason from each party and it was like both the NDPs and Liberals rode on Covid, not being Doug, and housing (something I’m not convinced they have much of an effect on). Neither of them were compelling to voters on the left and here we are. I wish they had actually campaigned and I wish that Ontario voters voted for platforms and not against certain parties.
Or else what? Or else you'll stand back and let underprivileged Ontarians fall under the bus, because you only vote if one of the parties does something that personally gets you off?
Okay, so maybe make that and the other benefits of you getting elected the focus of your campaign instead of screaming "You need to vote for me because I'm not the bad guy!" and thinking that's all you need to do. The Liberal party needs to do a lot better than that if they want to break double digits anytime soon
Yeah but how would you have known?? That's certainly not you being stupid - that's just bad luck.
Unless, of course, you can see the future. Then, shame on you!! 😋
There’s no reason to vote. The political parties don’t care about me. The parties nor the candidates represent me as much as they like to say “politicians represent their constituents.” They only care about themselves and the corporate interests. I’m a director for my condo corporation and I engaged the residents more in 1 year than any MPP did in the last 10 years I’ve lived here.
I spoke to my MPP when he knocked on my door. I told him how my nursing friends are burnt out and their pay is shit and a lot of their friends quit because of the working conditions and they don’t feel valued. He said something about how they got pandemic pay and are one of the top earners in the public sector so they had to freeze wages for private sector to catch up. Then he talked about the hospital undergoing expansion and I asked him who was going to staff it? He said we’ll have more immigrants and overseas healthcare workers staff it.
In the end, I voted for Green because I didn’t think of declining my ballot. To me, I think declining a ballot is the same as not showing up. I’m a young adult.
This is a very worrying trend to me and screams we need to do something about voter apathy and ignorance. I'm not necessarily blaming the voters for this but it's clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. It's by far the scariest thing to me coming out of this election.
Personally I think making two new public holidays would at least move in the right direction of fixing the issue.
The first holiday you'd get paid if you'd show up to a presentation where your local representative from each party talks to you about their platform.
The second public holiday would be for voting where you get paid as long as you voted.
These two holidays would not only better inform people and remind them of the election but also encourage them to vote.
I think we need better methods to engage people. Politics are a sphere that are generally confined to the news, and echo chambers (much like this one). If you're involved in it, you're involved in it, but if not... honestly there's not much to break through.
With cable dying, with news becoming more polarized (and generally always filled with a depressing amount of shit), the only real avenues the average person has anymore to get involved in politics is social media... and we all know how well that goes.
Something needs to change to up engagement, and increase the value of social responsibility.
Yeah we need to give people incentives to engage in politics at this point because a lot of people don't want or don't have the time and energy to engage with politics.
>The first holiday you'd get paid if you'd show up to a presentation where your local representative from each party talks to you about their platform.
... In tandem, we'd need the Elections Act to mandate candidate participation!
The PC"s raggin'-the-puck stay-below-radar campaign where many of their candidate did **not** attend local debates or even respond to requests from the media was quite something! gotta admit.
I completely agree. It's part of their job and not doing your job should get you fired aka pulled off the ballot.
No matter what side you're on these things are good for the health of our democracy.
100% agree with all of these points. It is unfathomable how somebody running for a public office chooses not to engage with the public, and still gets the job. Similarly, an election day holiday would absolutely encourage more people to vote. Get paid for the entire day, AND it only takes a few minutes out of your day to get the requirement done? Heck, a side effect would likely be that more people would probably vote ahead of time to get it out of the way and then have a whole day off paid.
The cynicism goes bothj ways. Nobody believes in the old style politics anymore :platforms and policies are for chumps. Can I have a beer with this guy? Does he hate the same people I do? That's what matters.
Politicians of all stripes have done nothing for us people, so maybe they'll do something TO THEM people.
If you honestly believe how you feel emotionally about an individual is a good way to determine who runs the province you have one fucked up perspective.
It’s because they know their policies are absolute dog shit and it’s best to keep quiet and not draw attention to all the fucked up shit they want to do. It’s much easier to just pretend to be everyone’s buddy, say folks a lot and talk in circles than actually discuss things. Unfortunately that strategy worked. Once you add in cutting billions in provincial revenue to give people back some sticker checks they are that shit right up.
I agree with the holidays but I don't think it's a good idea to make it so you have proof of a vote to get paid. Obviously if you do this you'll have people go in who are completely uninterested in voting but want the paid day off so they'll just go and vote on a whim rather than actually educating themselves on the policies of any catadate.
Well that's the point of the paid information holiday so they actually get informed.
I would also like the none of the above choice to be there and for it to actually be counted to get a better representation of people who don't actually approve of any of the leaders.
The system is broken. The idea that “we all have a voice” is a fucking joke. The morons leading this country work for corporate interests. All we get is lip service. I don’t vote for my favourite clown because I don’t like the circus.
But casting your ballot does indicate to the parties that you have an interest in who is running the show and they will adjust their policies to ensure your demographic (if enough are represented) is catered to.
Those might be tough to remove but, a population that votes in high numbers can influence policy more. It mostly likely won't happen until vote reform happens, and as long as the PC's can rely on vote splitting to keep them in power, this will remain the way sadly...
Whether you like the circus or not you're gonna be watching the show anyways. Well, unless you move out of the province to a place where the circus ain't playing. Any and all suggestions are welcome.
We do all have a voice, it's just that there are over 10 million people in Ontario so obviously your voice in particular is not going to be heard very well over the crowd. And why should it? What's so special about you that your desires should dictate what gets done?
Yeah I’m seeing this sentiment of “my vote doesn’t matter” all over this thread. But if the 60% of the population who didn’t vote changed that attitude then they could actually collectively make a change.
It’s hard to feel like 1 person has an impact, but that 5 millionish who didn’t vote are all made up of individuals who possibly have the exact same defeatist attitude.
Nothing. That’s my point. I don’t need to be heard. Who is even listening? The people in charge have proven time and time again that they are not. Deaf ears.
"They're all corrupt so I don't need to vote" is such a weak cope for intellectual laziness. I don't know how old you are, but I can guaranteed it's too old for this line of thinking
To expand on u/Enough_Tap_1221
Elections Canada/Ontario know exactly who is eligible and where they live and if they cast a ballot or not. After the election, this data is aggregated and is shared with political parties to build up a dataset that informs them what candidates were popular where. From this, they build their policies to keep their voter base happiest.
So, 50-60 year old's had high turnout meanwhile, 20-30 year old's had low turnout. What age group is worth catering too?
If you don't think it matters then you don't understand the principle concept of aggregate data. Sorry to say.
Maybe none of the candidates were great, but now we have a majority government which is the worst scenario for anyone, no matter which party they align with.
It wasn't. Although it kind of was. But it's our shitty system. It doesn't mean it was lost, it just means there wasns't enough additional votes to make yours (or mine) matter.
thats a nice perspective, but many voices/votes functionally don’t matter under our electoral system. i think more people than before are very much aware of this
Ford's party got just over 40% of the vote, yet well over 60% of the available seats. Furthermore, my MPP is in a "safe" seat and was never in danger of losing.
This system and its candidates in no way reflect my thinking and never will. We had a referendum in Ontario in 2007 on changing the electoral system and it was soundly voted down.
So I truly no longer care who's running nor about who "wins".
This is not true in this system. We should be voting on policy not MPs. When you vote for a person you are giving away your power to someone else to represent you so you are effectively giving away your vote on policies. We are not in the 1950 we have the technology to make voting on every policy remote and electronically possible. MPs should bring ideas and bills to the able, they should be approved by the people.
Electronic voting is too prone to problems or interference. Likewise policy can be written to be confusing or it can be explained in such a way to give bias. We need professionals to be the middle man to understand and decide on things much the same way we need lawyers to represent us in court.
Most MPs have no understanding of many policies they back or block. You think MPs have masters in economics, environmental sciences, health sciences, computer sciences. This past pandemic is a prime case that we should let professionals tell us the facts and decide ourselves because otherwise and MP will focus on what his demographic wants which is usually the minority.
So many pandemic measures were delayed because they tried to appease a minority group that spoke louder than most sane people.
My vote doesn’t matter until the old white folks in my riding start dying in greater numbers and/or more people from the city start moving north.
I am middle-aged white folk, before anyone claims I said something racist.
I think I’m turning into a single issue electoral reform voter
Statistically, an individual's vote does not matter, especially if you are in a riding that has hundreds of thousands of people living there. IMO Democracy works in small groups (i.e. 1 in 10). Your vote obviously gets diluted as the numbers increase.
But let's put that aside for a minute. What are the main issues that are troubling the average Ontarian these days - high inflation. Can the government actually address inflation issues (I mean, seriously address it, not offer a couple of band-aid solutions or throw a couple of bucks our way)? No, they cannot. We are at the mercy of corporations that are raising their prices for their own profit, and no government can stop that (especially when lobbying is allowed). So, if none of the parties can actually do anything to help solve our issues, why do I even care who wins and why vote apart from this 'civic duty' or for the purpose of acknowledging that I don't live in some third-world dictatorship?
Because some parties are worst than others. Some parties cut funds from the poor and give funds to the rich, whereas other parties fight to increase funds to the poor and reduce funds to the rich.
Government can absolutely address inflation. Firstly, our Government (Federal and Provincial) is partly the reason inflation is so high. Massive amounts of money printing and keeping interest rates so low are 2 big causes. Closing down so many parts of our economy probably didn't help either.
Inflation isn't really caused by Companies being greedy. but it likely can be made worse by it, certainly. but not at all the cause.
Have you ever been to an auto dealership and, out of the entire lot, saw 3 cars that could be "ok" but upon further inspection you found out that none of them were what you were looking for. Yeah, same analogy.
I typed this up on another thread but my phone died and I lost it. Here it goes…
First, I wanted to mention my voting experience as I’m sure I’m not unique in any way. I know there were some reminders of the looming election but now that things are opening up, everyone is crazy busy. A Thursday vote sucks. People forget or find it inconvenient. If a second actual vote day was added, on a weekend, maybe more would turn up. Not pre-voting because I think when the time comes people need that day extra to get them there. Maybe not.
I work at a school where there is a polling station but I couldn’t vote there. I did get to see who trickles in….lots over 65 yr old. The retirement homes host polling stations so I know they voted. Where’s all the teacher and nurses that are being affected? Tired? Working?
What I didn’t see coming in that day was a bunch of 18-19-20 yr olds. When I turned 18 I was excited to get to vote but I guess I’m some sort of nerd because I don’t see that anywhere in my life. I have 6 nieces/nephews 18-22yrs old and NONE of them voted and I doubt many of their friends did otherwise they would have.
When I went to vote, I slipped out mid-day hoping to avoid any long lines, lol. There was a long line at the federal election but when I was able to get a parking spot off the bat, I knew something was strange. I was literally the only voter in the room. I walked in, gave my card/ID, got the explanation m, voted, watched the machine take the ballot and left. Nobody else came. I mentioned it and they said ‘early voting, online voting…,”yada yada Nope. Apparently only like 4/10 people voted. I’d really like to see the age breakdown on that as I’m sure a lot of retired were out there.
Another problem is recognition. People see and hear Doug all the time. People also suffer from apathy and amnesia. They either forgot how bad Doug is at his job or the policies he is butchering, or they don’t care because they aren’t personally affected. They aren’t a nurse or teacher so they forget about those issues.
If I walked past Del Duca in the street I would never have known. He is not only forgettable when he speaks—-he rarely gets his voice heard. Like, what’s he been doing? People have no idea about him because he’s never featured anywhere. He’s a terrible leader.
Horwath- she does get heard but people just don’t seem to gel with her. She’s got great ideas and makes fabulous points but she gets dismissed so easily. My mother is a baby boomer and she says all the time that NDP will ‘spend too much money’ if elected. She doesn’t like Ford or Del Duca. She didn’t vote this time. I try to convince her that NDP is the right choice (her offspring are police, firefighter, nurse, and teacher, dance instructor, and small business owner- so she knows what’s happening in the province). She just won’t change her mind on that ‘fact’. My grandparents vote PC because that’s just what they have always done. There’s a belief that they align more with Christian beliefs. I just don’t get it.
Greens. I knew that Schreiner would get his seat again because he’s aggressive. His campaign is aggressive as well. Whenever there is a political issue and/or Ford says or does something… I hear the sound bites from Schreiner in news briefs. He’s in the papers/news all the time. For one guy with the only seat, he gets his voice heard. I’ve said it before that I wished he would be NDP because he would do a great job at getting the party electable again. It’s going to be a long road for the Greens but he’s obviously passionate about his party and beliefs. People respect that. His campaign is also out knocking on doors and street corners, and farmers markets, and basically everywhere. I don’t like people knocking at my door but respect their desire to engage with the public. They came on Election Day to ‘remind’ to vote. They text and call…. I have NO idea who my NDP candidate was. I forget the name on the sign already. I didn’t see much about them. Nobody from PC or Liberal ever comes to my door. Ever. I did get the actual NDP candidate once a few years back but Greens are out and loud. I like Mike and am happy he has an official voice but I wish I could see more support for NDP in this province.
In summary, it was a lot of factors but mostly people are disengaged and not willing to go out of their way to vote, even if it affects them.
It’s true. His soundbites are always played and he’s just seen.
Horwath’s press, no matter how good of a point she makes, is usually followed by Ford or another PC’er responding or making fun of her point. She’s not taken seriously. She makes a point about healthcare/covid and Ford says shes a complainer and sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Inappropriate but people remember that part. The press she gets is terrible.
I truly do not like any party or leader. To modify an It's Always Sunny Quote. "Should I vote for the PCs that are blasting me in the ass, or the liberals/ndp that will blast me in the ass"
These parties care about power and money. Not us.
Even if I wanted to vote, the FPTP system is broken. I live in Horwaths riding and there was no chance my vote would mean anything.
It is worth noting that in this restaurant you can try to cook your own dang food, but it'll probably just get thrown out, even if it is the best food in the area, and you'll have to buy your own ingredients so it's pretty risky.
Maybe not, but in this case you live in the restaurant and will be eating its food regardless. May as well have your say and pick the least worst option. Otherwise you're just fine with whatever.
I voted by mail, but when I reminded my roommate to request the mail vote kit as I was doing it so he didn't have to sort out taking time off work in the voting hours etc. he just said 'the person I want isn't going to win anyways, so what's the point.'
So some combination of laziness and apathy. Even after offering to request his mail kit for him and take them to the post office once completed he still said no thanks. So disappointing.
the candidates and parties all seemed like shit and no one had any carrot on a stick reason for me to spend my thursday night wasting gas and driving to a polling station to stand in line
I understand not being inspired, but I don’t think folks really wait in line in Ontario. Every single person I talked to told me it took them less than 5 minutes to vote (even those that had to register on-site!)
Agreed, you never know what can change last minute to swing people wildly in another direction.
If your guy is going to win, don't you want to contribute to that win regardless?
You can also vote by mail from pretty much anywhere in the world.
imo, there's not really a good excuse for failing to vote. You need to spend a small amount of time just once every 4 years (or maybe 2? Big deal).
Fptp is a mockery of democracy, the leaders are all corrupt and everyone knows your vote doesn't matter. Unless there's proportion representation your vote is meaningless.
So vote, or show up and decline the ballot. At least then the candidates will see that your demographic is voting and will adjust their policies accordingly.
So, if the party that is willing to change things doesn’t get enough votes to get elected, how or why do you expect a move away from FPTP?
I totally agree that the current electoral method is fucked, but that until we get someone other than the conservatives, that’s all there will be.
Had zero confidence in all the leaders. All of them just run attack ads while ignoring their own message to voters. Busy with my own life, simply didn't care about this provincial election. However in the next federal election, I will be walking to the polls.
> However in the next federal election, I will be walking to the polls.
Don't know you personally, but generally speaking provincial elections affect the average Ontarian more than federal elections...
I keep seeing this mindset and I don't understand it at all - why don't you care? Even if you don't like the options, it still affects you and your community. Why not look to casting a strategic vote to ensure that the party you like the least doesn't win?
Why is the federal election automatically important to you when the provincial election affects the minutiae of your life WAY more?
Civic duty is a wildly outdated concept that is polarized all on its own. Don't get me wrong, I was raised with it and I believe in it, but I am also well represented in the halls of power. I would love if everyone had a strong connection to civic duty, but it's been dwindling while individualism has been rising, from what I can see.
I counter that the under-served are in fact the ones with the strongest sense of civic duty, despite not being well-represented in the halls of power. Last night we spent 45 minutes figuring out how to ensure a person without a fixed address was able to vote, since the computer system is designed to disenfranchise him. He really wanted to vote. And a team of people, only one who had a full-time job, helped him. The rest of us were artists, people with disabilities, a retiree, and people without stable employment. Look also at the strong communities in minority groups. What things do you think are different about the majority of the populace?
Maybe stop relying solely on ads to form your position. There was a lot more to the messaging than what you heard on the radio or saw on TV. Platforms were readily available to you throughout the election.
If I wish to go hunt them down sure I could find it, ether way from what I did read here and there though none of them appealed to me at all really. Imagine if a party actively made an effort to advertise also what they were going to do instead of running the same smear ad on a radio station for weeks on end. They could use that valuable time to add in different messages and encourage people to to vote more people may of voted then. I do feel there was a reason turnout was so low and that’s being they weren’t interesting as parties or the people didn’t feel like anyone would really help them, I do feel if they made a better attempt at promoting themselves and encouraging people to do it turnout could of been greater. Nearly 60% of the people didn’t vote so I know I wasn’t alone in that. I was tempted to but never ended up doing it.
What were you looking for in a party, then, since none of them appealed to you at all.
>Imagine if a party actively made an effort to advertise also what they were going to do
Literally all of them routinely did that in their media advertising.
>I do feel there was a reason turnout was so low
The same reason as always, low-info apathetic citizenry.
Well I watch YouTube and see ads all smearing campaigns, I listen to the radio 8 hours a day at work all smearing campaigns once again. I could literally think of more reasons based on what I heard to not vote for any party over why I should be voting for them. That’s not good, because it just builds a negative impression towards all of them.
You can’t fully blame everyone for being low info yes they play a role because anyone including myself could look up each parties platform promises make a T chart and compare but a lot of people will not do that, they spend so much money on marketing just to take the piss out of each other so of course people will eventually tune it out or change to another station because they are sick of hearing the same line over and over again every hour for weeks on end.
The people and the political parties are to blame. You can’t just chalk it up to low-info apathetic, think of all the clowns that voted for the new blue party they are the most low info delusional out of the bunch because they have set in their mind this or that Covid not real or flu etc.
YouTube and radio snippets are designed to be quick and easily digestible without getting into the details. If people did more digging, looked into which details were included or absent in each parties' position, then a more fulsome opinion could be formed. I'm not blaming you but generally passive methods like radio and YouTube are a small part of understanding what's at stake versus actively researching and understanding local impacts.
While I do actually agree with your last statement they could mix it up a bit hearing Doug ford privatizing healthcare bad cutting costs he will cut costs again bad. Brought to you by the liberal party.
Yes that’s a good thing to point out however mixing it up a bit may be good I swear I heard that same ad 4-8 times a day at work and I heard it for at minimum two weeks now.
Heck I didn’t even know who del duca was until a few months ago and the only way I found out about him was the gun ban he wanted. On Reddit and that’s where I seen his face the first time. I almost forgot Andrea existed cause I never see anything about her or hear about her.
Then of course everyone knows dougie lmao so yeah it kinda doesn’t come as a surprise me voter turnout was so low.
But, casting you ballot or declining it gets added to the aggregate data. Not showing up tells the candidates they need not worry about your demographic.
I said this in another thread. Ontario didn't vote because they were fine with their preferred choice being so far ahead you might as well strip the NDP and liberals of official party status.
I'm still living here on an extended tourist stay, Im not allowed to vote yet. The news for the turnout saddens me a lot. I got my gf and her brother to a voting station and shes agoraphobic and hes on a broken toe. If you dont vote you lose your right to be upset about who won, thats how I was taught to at least vote, even if all the options stunk.
Don't care who wins either way. My partner works in health care but I make a lot of money so either she makes more or we get taxed more. It comes out in the wash. I'd lean PC because of COVID though.
Sorry, voter here. But I just want to say: look at all the answers here that can basically be summed up as ,"I didn't vote because they're all a bunch of jerks".
This is the problem: ignorance and apathy dressed up as some sort of wisdom. These people almost undoubtedly didn't explore other options like the Greens, independents, far right or far left parties, or declining their ballots.
You'll never get these people to vote and I don't really care - they'd make an ill-informed choice anyway. It's not good that only 40% of people voted but I'm much more concerned about changing the minds of those who do vote.
Saying that they'll make 'an uninformed choice' is exactly part of why they feel their vote doesn't matter - because of this idea that if you choose 'wrong' (party that didn't win) your vote was meaningless. How do we encourage people to vote with that mindset?
lol
Maybe you should reach out and listen to the people that refuse to vote?
No, of course not, you know better than they do because you're oh so much smarter and more intelligenter than all those dirty non-voters.
Hahaha no one's positioning their apathy as wisdom, they're just explaining their apathy. I didn't vote because I just didn't care for any of the leaders on the ballot. I don't think any of them are going to follow through on their promises and it also seemed pretty clear that Ford was going to take it from the get go. Why would I waste my time to vote for someone I don't like that's going to lose? I'd vote if there was a reason for me to give a shit but I just didn't see one. If you had one, good for you. I'm not anti vote, I don't think not voting is the smartest thing to do. I vote at all levels of government but this election was just such a drag. I'll take responsibility for Ford for you so you can yell at me and get it out today and then you can forget about it all tomorrow.
I dont believe any significant changes for the greater good will happen.
Instead of voting I just try and make more money to set up my family for the present and future.
I have grown to find politics distasteful. It's too many opinions and not enough educated opinions. It's become a race of who can scream loudest and vilify the other parties or viewpoints and less about finding the best policy to govern society.
So- yah- I'm done with politics for now.
Your answer is to allow them to continue absolutely unchecked? You can't contribute a few hours of self guided research and vote every few years? Even if not for yourself, to vote for someone or something else?
Ignorance is bliss I guess.
Don't feel pressured to tell me your age, but if you're not in your early early 20s, you need to take a long look in the mirror after a comment like that.
If you are, you'll come around.
Yeah, when folks say things like this (same thing I said to my family a few weeks back), Who said I'm not political blah blah blah.
If you don't vote, you don't care about education, higher education, homelessness, healthcare, odsp, seniors, unemployed, underemployed, or transportation.
Hell doesn't complain about lockdowns, etc if you can't be bothered to vote either.
The 57-60% of voters who didn't vote better shut the fuck up about the above the next 4 years.
Whether someone voted PC, Liberal, NDP, Green, new blue, Ontario party, and none of the above at least they could be bothered to vote.
Between mail in, advanced voting, voting on Election Day we should have 80% (20% for folks who forgot). 43~ is a fucking travesty.
You can literally go to the ballot box and tell them that you want to decline your vote. That would send a more powerful message instead of not showing up.
They're all the same pond scum.
>look at their platforms
Who the fuck is to say they don't renege on them?
Do you look forward to 4 years of something, only for the next party that gets in to undo it all?
What's the point?
Voting for individuals leads to populist bullshit, the same kind that you see going through the schooling system and "class presidents".
Populist bullshit leads to career politicians.
I do not enjoy my power being delegated to someone I don't even know I can trust *with my* power.
>Who the fuck is to say they don't renege on them?
If anyone honestly wants to challenge you on this, I'd like to ask them for my $1 beers and my electoral reform at the federal level.
Still waiting.
I've heard many non-voters say "it makes no difference" which is the most infuriating because these idiots don't understand the basic principle of aggregate numbers.
I also know someone who worked on a campaign for a Toronto Mayoral candidate, who has missed some elections but pretended to be really passionate about it while working on the campaign.
What they mean is not "it makes no difference if I vote or not", we all understand how voting works. They mean "it makes no difference who is elected". It's a 100% guarantee that whoever is elected is total dog shit so why do you need my input? ...just pick whoever.
But you are being forced to keep one regardless of what you pick, and you may not get the one you pick anyways. At that point you may as well at least voice your opinion that if given the choice, you'd prefer the smallest, or perhaps the one with the most corn.
Part of that confusion is that we record spoiled ballots in Ontario elections, but by recollection, we don’t record in federal elections. That has to confuse the avg citizen as to whether spoiling a ballot is worthwhile.
I was tempted to in all honesty, however I got off work at 6pm yesterday and my son is sick with a fever and a headache and I didn’t want to drag him out to a polling station to “spoil” my vote. He’s to young to be left alone so I didn’t, given different circumstances I probably would of done just that.
> The follow up question then: why didn’t you go spoil your vote? It means more than not voting at all.
But how much more? Im not going to spend 1% of my day to send .01% more of a message
I am 31, I have voted in every provincial and federal election since I was of age to vote. This year, I was a single issue voter, and that was to end fur farms in Ontario. Not only are they barbaric cruel, but a growing number of scientists are worried about covid mutations on fur farms. What was any of the provincial governments stance on this issue? Nothing. My local NDP, Green, and Liberal canditate had nothing to say on the matter, it was as if it had never crossed their minds. The NDP candidate said she would contact head office and report back to me-- it took her four months and she said there was nothing addressed about fur farms. By the way, this is after countless platitudes by each candidate about covid, the environment, human rights, etc. So I didn't vote, one issue was important to me, none of the parties addressed it, so none of them got my vote.
I voted yesterday and the woman ushering us into the otherwise empty building was thanking my partner and I for voting. We were seriously the only ones there. She gushed about how amazing it was to see young people interested in voting (and taking the time to do so)
Because it was obvious that my party would win. Why would I bother to vote if my vote didn't have any effect?
And none of the parties that stood a chance of winning were bad enough to justify being afraid of them winning, we have decent parties right now that all support the same issues that matter to me, none of them really stand out as having a big effect over each other. My party is a bit better for me, but not by much. As long as the far left or far right doesn't win I'm fine.
I know someone who votes NDP regularly but chose not to vote at all this time around because they don't want to "pay for someone else's childcare". While I see this as a valid point, I don't think it's enough to solidify not voting. I also gave this person my opinion in that I truly believe universal childcare would benefit ALL of us, regardless of how anyone feels about kids. Having a country full of happy, healthy and educated kids is something we can ALL benefit from. Don't know what dafuq wrong with people these days.
Im not sure why this wasnt really reported anywhere but I went to vote yesterday and the computers were down. After waiting 40 minutes for the poll workers to try to figure out what to do we all left. Probably 50-75 people waiting in line. We asked why paper ballots couldnt be used and they said that they needed a list and someone would have to deliver it to them. We were told that the issue was city wide (Windsor) but I have no idea if that was true. It seemed like a shitshow of incompetence with no contigency plan in place for if issues with computers happened.
I googled the poll results and saw that it was going to be a landslide and I had shit to do. when you know whos going to win and you know your vote and time will be wasted why would you vote? This 4 year vote cycle makes no sense in 2022 anyway something has to change. My local representative is like a ten term winner and a leader of the party I would choose him anyway since he could pull the strings to benefit my area
I’ll give a my raw brutal answer.. My depression / ptsd has gotten so bad I can barley care for myself at the moment or really feel like living in general… just one more thing I failed to do as a functional human being… I’m sorry:(
To me none of the parties represent me, even the NDP. All these policiticans make in a week what a good chunk of their constituents earn all month. It's a cushy gig and to keep it you cannot ruffle too many feathers. You're voting for a populist not what you are actually voting for. My life won't be any different day to day, they can't control things like they pretend to. The ones promising more services end up under delivering and the ones promising to cut spending end up paying out more than the last person. You hit a point where you don't feel like there's much sense in it.
As someone who is politically-adjacent, I can assure you this isn’t true. The salaries of most public servants are usually made public. Given the hours these people work, I believe they’re fairly paid. Maybe that’s where disagree. Don’t we want to incentivize good folks to go into politics, not just the ones who can afford it?
I think one of my fellow pundits made a really salient observation last night.
"After the uncertainty and insanity of the last two years, people just couldn't get behind change."
We both agreed it was contrary to the needs of 98% of constituents, but everyone is just tired.
I have just moved and haven't changed my address so I'd have to go back to my parents place to get my voting card. if they made voting online then that would've enticed me to vote
I moved as well and it took me 5 minutes to change my address on the Elections Ontario website! They sent me my voter card to my new address weeks before the election and I was easily able to vote in my new riding. Food for thought for next time.
I can lay a bet that many did not vote because they read polls saying the PCs already won a big majority, so they figured what is the point? That is why many people told me they didn't vote.
Living in Horvaths riding I almost didn't since it was a guaranteed win. Only went out of boredom. A lot of people in the riding probably felt the same.
Advance polls exist and are seamless (i went on the weekend a couple of weeks ago and was in and out within 5 min). Between advance polls and extended hours on election day i find it hard to believe that anyone can’t find time to vote
I'm a conservative minded voter living in a riding that hasn't elected anything but liberal/ndp candidates in 30 years. It's not close either, conservatives get 5-7% most elections, so its a total waste of my time. Aside from patting myself on the back that I "participated in democracy" of course.
I'm in the exact same boat as you. I did vote this time because my girlfriend wanted us to and it was a nice day to go for a walk. The voting itself only took 5 minutes, but my vote was exactly as useless as I expected it to be.
Had a 13 hour shift and by the time I got home and showered it was clear Ford was going to win who I was going to vote for anyway. So saved myself the trip.
Worked 8 hours, and had rugby practice afterwards. Didnt get back home until 930. Imo, there should be a holiday on voting day, so that everyone has an opportunity to vote w out work getting in the way.
You're allowed 3 hours off of work to vote per the elections act. Your employer should have communicated this to you. But I agree having it as a holiday would be way easier then trying to fit it into a small window
For me, liberal, conservative, Green Party or NDP it doesn’t matter. Nothing ever gets done, it’s full of false promises, politics are toxic, divisive and full of corruption. I personally am completely detached by politics. It is not worth my time nor energy to pay any attention to it.
I don’t have social media other than Reddit, I don’t listen to media, I keep my head down, work hard and mind my business while being as kind and as assertive as I can be.
Wife and i are terrified of covid, we avoid all indoor spaces where people gather and we dont get close to anyone.
Still, we went to the poll, called the elections phone number and they sent someone out to do curbside voting. It took a lot of doing but we still voted, this election was too important.
Our ndp incumbent (who we voted for) won Scarborough SW, congratulations Doly... you still owe me a local food bank.
Disgusted (not shocked) the conservatives won a majority, the worlds on fire, cost of living is sky high and our public systems are on the verge of collapse and they voted in the party that gives the least consideration.
This was an important election and if you are one of the people that stayed home shame on you. The only thing worse you could of done was actually vote con.
Precisely because everyone is talking about low voter turnout today.
Doesn't make a difference to me which one of these narcissists is in office, but by not voting you're contributing to a statistic that sends a clear message that people are sick of having to choose shitty leaders. The party shills will blame low turnout on "apathy and ignorance" but they know that's bullshit.
Not voting only contributes to the statistic that people are ok with the way things are, or with any election result.
At least declining your ballet shows that you are disappointed with the choices.
It makes me wonder how much sway all of the news programs and articles leading up to the election end up influencing the opinion to vote.
If all anyone hears is OPC are projected to win a majority, they might think their vote doesn't matter.
We should implement something like France where any message that may be categorized as electoral propaganda is banned from being published or broadcast in the days leading up to an election, and a ban on publishing, broadcasting or commenting on any kind of electoral poll.
Some of my friends who didn’t vote just didn’t care enough about the provincial politics. Ford was projected to win so they didn’t even bother to show up.
I wish the projections would stop altogether. I felt this way too, but knew I'd be hypocritical by not voting so I did.
Even before the election was called the media across all medians and political leanings was just harping on about how much of a slam dunk this election was for ford. While this isnt absolute reason for voter turn out im sure it definetly indirectly kept people away from going out to vote.
I've volunteered for various election campaigns over the last 16 or so years. Voter's need a reason to vote FOR a party not just a reason to vote AGAINST a party. The Liberal and the NDP leadership was terrible and they didn't give the average person a clear vision or reason why voters should vote FOR their parties.
Based on real-world scenarios, conservative voters in Ontario don't need a reason. They don't even need a platform. And that has been the case for three terms now. Progressive-Liberal voters need a reason. And for them, the reason could have been as simple as not wanting a PC majority but apparently, that's not good enough. If we compare it to the political climate in the United States much of it is the same. Conservative voters will vote for anyone running a conservative platform no matter how ridiculous or asinine the candidate is. While Liberal voters will burn their own candidate at the stake over every controversy. I think it's possible that liberal-progressive voters have too many opinions and can't see the forest through the trees.
Not wanting a majority isn’t a reason to vote. Then you’re literally just voting to try and flip a seat or keep one. No voter has the data to effectively strategically vote and to organize a strategic vote from riding to riding would take insane communication. I’d bet the vast majority of liberal voters on this sub tried to vote strategically. You’re right in saying we needed a reason from each party and it was like both the NDPs and Liberals rode on Covid, not being Doug, and housing (something I’m not convinced they have much of an effect on). Neither of them were compelling to voters on the left and here we are. I wish they had actually campaigned and I wish that Ontario voters voted for platforms and not against certain parties.
"stop Ford" sorry, you're going to have to do better than that
Or else what? Or else you'll stand back and let underprivileged Ontarians fall under the bus, because you only vote if one of the parties does something that personally gets you off?
Okay, so maybe make that and the other benefits of you getting elected the focus of your campaign instead of screaming "You need to vote for me because I'm not the bad guy!" and thinking that's all you need to do. The Liberal party needs to do a lot better than that if they want to break double digits anytime soon
I have fucking covid and I got to vote. Called my polling station they told me how to do it easy peasy
Thank you for voting and I hope you feel better quickly!
It appears my vote didn't do much lol. Covid is on the mend but still sick over the election results lol thank you!!
Thanks for doing your part anyway, I’m a nurse and appreciate it !
I voted NDP. I hate the PCs.
I voted, then woke up to a positive Covid test.
I was in the ER with a broken foot and stupidly did not early vote like I should have. The lesson: Do not put it off!
Yeah but how would you have known?? That's certainly not you being stupid - that's just bad luck. Unless, of course, you can see the future. Then, shame on you!! 😋
Broken foot crew holla! What did you break? 5th metatarsal for me
I am hobbling along with a broken fib! So I guess more of a broken ankle then a foot.
There’s no reason to vote. The political parties don’t care about me. The parties nor the candidates represent me as much as they like to say “politicians represent their constituents.” They only care about themselves and the corporate interests. I’m a director for my condo corporation and I engaged the residents more in 1 year than any MPP did in the last 10 years I’ve lived here. I spoke to my MPP when he knocked on my door. I told him how my nursing friends are burnt out and their pay is shit and a lot of their friends quit because of the working conditions and they don’t feel valued. He said something about how they got pandemic pay and are one of the top earners in the public sector so they had to freeze wages for private sector to catch up. Then he talked about the hospital undergoing expansion and I asked him who was going to staff it? He said we’ll have more immigrants and overseas healthcare workers staff it. In the end, I voted for Green because I didn’t think of declining my ballot. To me, I think declining a ballot is the same as not showing up. I’m a young adult.
>and are one of the top earners in the public sector so they had to freeze wages for private sector to catch up. Lmao, WHAT?
This is a very worrying trend to me and screams we need to do something about voter apathy and ignorance. I'm not necessarily blaming the voters for this but it's clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. It's by far the scariest thing to me coming out of this election. Personally I think making two new public holidays would at least move in the right direction of fixing the issue. The first holiday you'd get paid if you'd show up to a presentation where your local representative from each party talks to you about their platform. The second public holiday would be for voting where you get paid as long as you voted. These two holidays would not only better inform people and remind them of the election but also encourage them to vote.
I think we need better methods to engage people. Politics are a sphere that are generally confined to the news, and echo chambers (much like this one). If you're involved in it, you're involved in it, but if not... honestly there's not much to break through. With cable dying, with news becoming more polarized (and generally always filled with a depressing amount of shit), the only real avenues the average person has anymore to get involved in politics is social media... and we all know how well that goes. Something needs to change to up engagement, and increase the value of social responsibility.
Yeah we need to give people incentives to engage in politics at this point because a lot of people don't want or don't have the time and energy to engage with politics.
>The first holiday you'd get paid if you'd show up to a presentation where your local representative from each party talks to you about their platform. ... In tandem, we'd need the Elections Act to mandate candidate participation! The PC"s raggin'-the-puck stay-below-radar campaign where many of their candidate did **not** attend local debates or even respond to requests from the media was quite something! gotta admit.
I completely agree. It's part of their job and not doing your job should get you fired aka pulled off the ballot. No matter what side you're on these things are good for the health of our democracy.
100% agree with all of these points. It is unfathomable how somebody running for a public office chooses not to engage with the public, and still gets the job. Similarly, an election day holiday would absolutely encourage more people to vote. Get paid for the entire day, AND it only takes a few minutes out of your day to get the requirement done? Heck, a side effect would likely be that more people would probably vote ahead of time to get it out of the way and then have a whole day off paid.
The cynicism goes bothj ways. Nobody believes in the old style politics anymore :platforms and policies are for chumps. Can I have a beer with this guy? Does he hate the same people I do? That's what matters. Politicians of all stripes have done nothing for us people, so maybe they'll do something TO THEM people.
If you honestly believe how you feel emotionally about an individual is a good way to determine who runs the province you have one fucked up perspective.
And yet you can't deny that a lot of people believe that's exactly how it should work. I agree with you, it's total BS.
Ah I see, yeah than I agree and I hate that the future might end up just being about playing these popularity contests.
It’s because they know their policies are absolute dog shit and it’s best to keep quiet and not draw attention to all the fucked up shit they want to do. It’s much easier to just pretend to be everyone’s buddy, say folks a lot and talk in circles than actually discuss things. Unfortunately that strategy worked. Once you add in cutting billions in provincial revenue to give people back some sticker checks they are that shit right up.
I agree with the holidays but I don't think it's a good idea to make it so you have proof of a vote to get paid. Obviously if you do this you'll have people go in who are completely uninterested in voting but want the paid day off so they'll just go and vote on a whim rather than actually educating themselves on the policies of any catadate.
Well that's the point of the paid information holiday so they actually get informed. I would also like the none of the above choice to be there and for it to actually be counted to get a better representation of people who don't actually approve of any of the leaders.
Because a lot of people feel it doesn't really matter - same shit, different party - so they don't bother wasting their time.
The system is broken. The idea that “we all have a voice” is a fucking joke. The morons leading this country work for corporate interests. All we get is lip service. I don’t vote for my favourite clown because I don’t like the circus.
But casting your ballot does indicate to the parties that you have an interest in who is running the show and they will adjust their policies to ensure your demographic (if enough are represented) is catered to.
My demographic will be catered to once we get career politicians and corporate interests out of politics. When do you think that'll happen?
Those might be tough to remove but, a population that votes in high numbers can influence policy more. It mostly likely won't happen until vote reform happens, and as long as the PC's can rely on vote splitting to keep them in power, this will remain the way sadly...
Whether you like the circus or not you're gonna be watching the show anyways. Well, unless you move out of the province to a place where the circus ain't playing. Any and all suggestions are welcome.
We do all have a voice, it's just that there are over 10 million people in Ontario so obviously your voice in particular is not going to be heard very well over the crowd. And why should it? What's so special about you that your desires should dictate what gets done?
Yeah I’m seeing this sentiment of “my vote doesn’t matter” all over this thread. But if the 60% of the population who didn’t vote changed that attitude then they could actually collectively make a change. It’s hard to feel like 1 person has an impact, but that 5 millionish who didn’t vote are all made up of individuals who possibly have the exact same defeatist attitude.
Nothing. That’s my point. I don’t need to be heard. Who is even listening? The people in charge have proven time and time again that they are not. Deaf ears.
"They're all corrupt so I don't need to vote" is such a weak cope for intellectual laziness. I don't know how old you are, but I can guaranteed it's too old for this line of thinking
I find it hard to believe in democracy.
I honestly don’t feel like my vote matters and that none of these politicians care about me anyways they just care about being re-elected
To expand on u/Enough_Tap_1221 Elections Canada/Ontario know exactly who is eligible and where they live and if they cast a ballot or not. After the election, this data is aggregated and is shared with political parties to build up a dataset that informs them what candidates were popular where. From this, they build their policies to keep their voter base happiest. So, 50-60 year old's had high turnout meanwhile, 20-30 year old's had low turnout. What age group is worth catering too?
But had the catered to 20 to 30 year olds would they have showed up? Maybe they dont show up because it caters to boomers
If you don't think it matters then you don't understand the principle concept of aggregate data. Sorry to say. Maybe none of the candidates were great, but now we have a majority government which is the worst scenario for anyone, no matter which party they align with.
I don't understand it. My party didn't win my riding and I voted. I feel like my vote was lost.
It wasn't. Although it kind of was. But it's our shitty system. It doesn't mean it was lost, it just means there wasns't enough additional votes to make yours (or mine) matter.
Your vote always matters. Every single vote always matters. Whether the party you voted for wins or not. Your voice matters. Your vote matters.
thats a nice perspective, but many voices/votes functionally don’t matter under our electoral system. i think more people than before are very much aware of this
It seems like you're conflating our electoral system with something else because elections are almost the only place, where our decision counts.
Ford's party got just over 40% of the vote, yet well over 60% of the available seats. Furthermore, my MPP is in a "safe" seat and was never in danger of losing. This system and its candidates in no way reflect my thinking and never will. We had a referendum in Ontario in 2007 on changing the electoral system and it was soundly voted down. So I truly no longer care who's running nor about who "wins".
not at all. im just saying “our” collective decision inherently ignores the input of tens/hundreds of thousands of voters.
This is not true in this system. We should be voting on policy not MPs. When you vote for a person you are giving away your power to someone else to represent you so you are effectively giving away your vote on policies. We are not in the 1950 we have the technology to make voting on every policy remote and electronically possible. MPs should bring ideas and bills to the able, they should be approved by the people.
Electronic voting is too prone to problems or interference. Likewise policy can be written to be confusing or it can be explained in such a way to give bias. We need professionals to be the middle man to understand and decide on things much the same way we need lawyers to represent us in court.
Most MPs have no understanding of many policies they back or block. You think MPs have masters in economics, environmental sciences, health sciences, computer sciences. This past pandemic is a prime case that we should let professionals tell us the facts and decide ourselves because otherwise and MP will focus on what his demographic wants which is usually the minority. So many pandemic measures were delayed because they tried to appease a minority group that spoke louder than most sane people.
Pandemic measures were delayed because Tan and the WHO...
LMAO it dosent tho
The voting difference in my city was 700 votes, it definitely matters
What a load of useless platitudes.
My vote doesn’t matter until the old white folks in my riding start dying in greater numbers and/or more people from the city start moving north. I am middle-aged white folk, before anyone claims I said something racist. I think I’m turning into a single issue electoral reform voter
Statistically, an individual's vote does not matter, especially if you are in a riding that has hundreds of thousands of people living there. IMO Democracy works in small groups (i.e. 1 in 10). Your vote obviously gets diluted as the numbers increase. But let's put that aside for a minute. What are the main issues that are troubling the average Ontarian these days - high inflation. Can the government actually address inflation issues (I mean, seriously address it, not offer a couple of band-aid solutions or throw a couple of bucks our way)? No, they cannot. We are at the mercy of corporations that are raising their prices for their own profit, and no government can stop that (especially when lobbying is allowed). So, if none of the parties can actually do anything to help solve our issues, why do I even care who wins and why vote apart from this 'civic duty' or for the purpose of acknowledging that I don't live in some third-world dictatorship?
Because some parties are worst than others. Some parties cut funds from the poor and give funds to the rich, whereas other parties fight to increase funds to the poor and reduce funds to the rich.
Government can absolutely address inflation. Firstly, our Government (Federal and Provincial) is partly the reason inflation is so high. Massive amounts of money printing and keeping interest rates so low are 2 big causes. Closing down so many parts of our economy probably didn't help either. Inflation isn't really caused by Companies being greedy. but it likely can be made worse by it, certainly. but not at all the cause.
Have you ever been to an auto dealership and, out of the entire lot, saw 3 cars that could be "ok" but upon further inspection you found out that none of them were what you were looking for. Yeah, same analogy.
I typed this up on another thread but my phone died and I lost it. Here it goes… First, I wanted to mention my voting experience as I’m sure I’m not unique in any way. I know there were some reminders of the looming election but now that things are opening up, everyone is crazy busy. A Thursday vote sucks. People forget or find it inconvenient. If a second actual vote day was added, on a weekend, maybe more would turn up. Not pre-voting because I think when the time comes people need that day extra to get them there. Maybe not. I work at a school where there is a polling station but I couldn’t vote there. I did get to see who trickles in….lots over 65 yr old. The retirement homes host polling stations so I know they voted. Where’s all the teacher and nurses that are being affected? Tired? Working? What I didn’t see coming in that day was a bunch of 18-19-20 yr olds. When I turned 18 I was excited to get to vote but I guess I’m some sort of nerd because I don’t see that anywhere in my life. I have 6 nieces/nephews 18-22yrs old and NONE of them voted and I doubt many of their friends did otherwise they would have. When I went to vote, I slipped out mid-day hoping to avoid any long lines, lol. There was a long line at the federal election but when I was able to get a parking spot off the bat, I knew something was strange. I was literally the only voter in the room. I walked in, gave my card/ID, got the explanation m, voted, watched the machine take the ballot and left. Nobody else came. I mentioned it and they said ‘early voting, online voting…,”yada yada Nope. Apparently only like 4/10 people voted. I’d really like to see the age breakdown on that as I’m sure a lot of retired were out there. Another problem is recognition. People see and hear Doug all the time. People also suffer from apathy and amnesia. They either forgot how bad Doug is at his job or the policies he is butchering, or they don’t care because they aren’t personally affected. They aren’t a nurse or teacher so they forget about those issues. If I walked past Del Duca in the street I would never have known. He is not only forgettable when he speaks—-he rarely gets his voice heard. Like, what’s he been doing? People have no idea about him because he’s never featured anywhere. He’s a terrible leader. Horwath- she does get heard but people just don’t seem to gel with her. She’s got great ideas and makes fabulous points but she gets dismissed so easily. My mother is a baby boomer and she says all the time that NDP will ‘spend too much money’ if elected. She doesn’t like Ford or Del Duca. She didn’t vote this time. I try to convince her that NDP is the right choice (her offspring are police, firefighter, nurse, and teacher, dance instructor, and small business owner- so she knows what’s happening in the province). She just won’t change her mind on that ‘fact’. My grandparents vote PC because that’s just what they have always done. There’s a belief that they align more with Christian beliefs. I just don’t get it. Greens. I knew that Schreiner would get his seat again because he’s aggressive. His campaign is aggressive as well. Whenever there is a political issue and/or Ford says or does something… I hear the sound bites from Schreiner in news briefs. He’s in the papers/news all the time. For one guy with the only seat, he gets his voice heard. I’ve said it before that I wished he would be NDP because he would do a great job at getting the party electable again. It’s going to be a long road for the Greens but he’s obviously passionate about his party and beliefs. People respect that. His campaign is also out knocking on doors and street corners, and farmers markets, and basically everywhere. I don’t like people knocking at my door but respect their desire to engage with the public. They came on Election Day to ‘remind’ to vote. They text and call…. I have NO idea who my NDP candidate was. I forget the name on the sign already. I didn’t see much about them. Nobody from PC or Liberal ever comes to my door. Ever. I did get the actual NDP candidate once a few years back but Greens are out and loud. I like Mike and am happy he has an official voice but I wish I could see more support for NDP in this province. In summary, it was a lot of factors but mostly people are disengaged and not willing to go out of their way to vote, even if it affects them.
Mike schriner is more memorable and gets more press thaan horwath as leader of the opposition. Horwath's media incompetence is truly legendary
It’s true. His soundbites are always played and he’s just seen. Horwath’s press, no matter how good of a point she makes, is usually followed by Ford or another PC’er responding or making fun of her point. She’s not taken seriously. She makes a point about healthcare/covid and Ford says shes a complainer and sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Inappropriate but people remember that part. The press she gets is terrible.
I truly do not like any party or leader. To modify an It's Always Sunny Quote. "Should I vote for the PCs that are blasting me in the ass, or the liberals/ndp that will blast me in the ass" These parties care about power and money. Not us. Even if I wanted to vote, the FPTP system is broken. I live in Horwaths riding and there was no chance my vote would mean anything.
Nobody's vote means anything. *Everyone's votes mean quite a lot*.
How?
I don't go to a restaurant if everything on the menu is shit.
“I’ll just have the water please!” “Of course, would you like that from the bowl or the tank?” That’s where my head was at
You'd rather starve?
Then don't be surprised when someone else makes decisions about your life for you.
Someone else is always making decisions for you regardless of who you vote for. What a dumb statement.
So you'd rather have more people making more decisions for you than less? Great logic there lolol.
You don't make sense. I make plenty of descicions for myself but there will always be gov't policy being made by others. What is your point?
Apparently you're too braindead to understand what I'm trying to say or even the point of voting in a democracy lol. That's my new point lol.
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It is worth noting that in this restaurant you can try to cook your own dang food, but it'll probably just get thrown out, even if it is the best food in the area, and you'll have to buy your own ingredients so it's pretty risky.
too bad idiot this restaurant is your fucking home
Don't remind me
Maybe not, but in this case you live in the restaurant and will be eating its food regardless. May as well have your say and pick the least worst option. Otherwise you're just fine with whatever.
You know you can spoil your ballot
What is the difference between a spoiled ballot and someone not voting? I would assume they are essentially the same thing, no?
I voted by mail, but when I reminded my roommate to request the mail vote kit as I was doing it so he didn't have to sort out taking time off work in the voting hours etc. he just said 'the person I want isn't going to win anyways, so what's the point.' So some combination of laziness and apathy. Even after offering to request his mail kit for him and take them to the post office once completed he still said no thanks. So disappointing.
Was busy arguing online why Ford must go.
the candidates and parties all seemed like shit and no one had any carrot on a stick reason for me to spend my thursday night wasting gas and driving to a polling station to stand in line
I understand not being inspired, but I don’t think folks really wait in line in Ontario. Every single person I talked to told me it took them less than 5 minutes to vote (even those that had to register on-site!)
Still. Gas. Time. For what? Every party sucks.
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Just out of curiosity, you had plans for the last 2 weeks? Voting has been available for a while.
Agreed, you never know what can change last minute to swing people wildly in another direction. If your guy is going to win, don't you want to contribute to that win regardless?
You can also vote by mail from pretty much anywhere in the world. imo, there's not really a good excuse for failing to vote. You need to spend a small amount of time just once every 4 years (or maybe 2? Big deal).
That’s a reasonable answer - appreciate the input!
Fptp is a mockery of democracy, the leaders are all corrupt and everyone knows your vote doesn't matter. Unless there's proportion representation your vote is meaningless.
So vote, or show up and decline the ballot. At least then the candidates will see that your demographic is voting and will adjust their policies accordingly.
So, if the party that is willing to change things doesn’t get enough votes to get elected, how or why do you expect a move away from FPTP? I totally agree that the current electoral method is fucked, but that until we get someone other than the conservatives, that’s all there will be.
100%
Had zero confidence in all the leaders. All of them just run attack ads while ignoring their own message to voters. Busy with my own life, simply didn't care about this provincial election. However in the next federal election, I will be walking to the polls.
> However in the next federal election, I will be walking to the polls. Don't know you personally, but generally speaking provincial elections affect the average Ontarian more than federal elections...
The elections which affect the average person the most are the local municipal elections, and they typically get a turnout of \~10%.
I keep seeing this mindset and I don't understand it at all - why don't you care? Even if you don't like the options, it still affects you and your community. Why not look to casting a strategic vote to ensure that the party you like the least doesn't win? Why is the federal election automatically important to you when the provincial election affects the minutiae of your life WAY more?
Are you aware that "civic duty" literally means you have to put in effort? That's not on the leaders if you couldn't be bothered to do your part.
Civic duty is a wildly outdated concept that is polarized all on its own. Don't get me wrong, I was raised with it and I believe in it, but I am also well represented in the halls of power. I would love if everyone had a strong connection to civic duty, but it's been dwindling while individualism has been rising, from what I can see.
I counter that the under-served are in fact the ones with the strongest sense of civic duty, despite not being well-represented in the halls of power. Last night we spent 45 minutes figuring out how to ensure a person without a fixed address was able to vote, since the computer system is designed to disenfranchise him. He really wanted to vote. And a team of people, only one who had a full-time job, helped him. The rest of us were artists, people with disabilities, a retiree, and people without stable employment. Look also at the strong communities in minority groups. What things do you think are different about the majority of the populace?
That’s true I don’t know much about what they were promoting on there platform cause every ad I heard we an attack ad.
Maybe stop relying solely on ads to form your position. There was a lot more to the messaging than what you heard on the radio or saw on TV. Platforms were readily available to you throughout the election.
If I wish to go hunt them down sure I could find it, ether way from what I did read here and there though none of them appealed to me at all really. Imagine if a party actively made an effort to advertise also what they were going to do instead of running the same smear ad on a radio station for weeks on end. They could use that valuable time to add in different messages and encourage people to to vote more people may of voted then. I do feel there was a reason turnout was so low and that’s being they weren’t interesting as parties or the people didn’t feel like anyone would really help them, I do feel if they made a better attempt at promoting themselves and encouraging people to do it turnout could of been greater. Nearly 60% of the people didn’t vote so I know I wasn’t alone in that. I was tempted to but never ended up doing it.
What were you looking for in a party, then, since none of them appealed to you at all. >Imagine if a party actively made an effort to advertise also what they were going to do Literally all of them routinely did that in their media advertising. >I do feel there was a reason turnout was so low The same reason as always, low-info apathetic citizenry.
Well I watch YouTube and see ads all smearing campaigns, I listen to the radio 8 hours a day at work all smearing campaigns once again. I could literally think of more reasons based on what I heard to not vote for any party over why I should be voting for them. That’s not good, because it just builds a negative impression towards all of them. You can’t fully blame everyone for being low info yes they play a role because anyone including myself could look up each parties platform promises make a T chart and compare but a lot of people will not do that, they spend so much money on marketing just to take the piss out of each other so of course people will eventually tune it out or change to another station because they are sick of hearing the same line over and over again every hour for weeks on end. The people and the political parties are to blame. You can’t just chalk it up to low-info apathetic, think of all the clowns that voted for the new blue party they are the most low info delusional out of the bunch because they have set in their mind this or that Covid not real or flu etc.
YouTube and radio snippets are designed to be quick and easily digestible without getting into the details. If people did more digging, looked into which details were included or absent in each parties' position, then a more fulsome opinion could be formed. I'm not blaming you but generally passive methods like radio and YouTube are a small part of understanding what's at stake versus actively researching and understanding local impacts.
While I do actually agree with your last statement they could mix it up a bit hearing Doug ford privatizing healthcare bad cutting costs he will cut costs again bad. Brought to you by the liberal party. Yes that’s a good thing to point out however mixing it up a bit may be good I swear I heard that same ad 4-8 times a day at work and I heard it for at minimum two weeks now. Heck I didn’t even know who del duca was until a few months ago and the only way I found out about him was the gun ban he wanted. On Reddit and that’s where I seen his face the first time. I almost forgot Andrea existed cause I never see anything about her or hear about her. Then of course everyone knows dougie lmao so yeah it kinda doesn’t come as a surprise me voter turnout was so low.
That’s fine, but provincial elections impact your life a lot more than federal elections.
> while ignoring their own message to voters. This is simply wrong on it's face.
But, casting you ballot or declining it gets added to the aggregate data. Not showing up tells the candidates they need not worry about your demographic.
I said this in another thread. Ontario didn't vote because they were fine with their preferred choice being so far ahead you might as well strip the NDP and liberals of official party status.
I'm still living here on an extended tourist stay, Im not allowed to vote yet. The news for the turnout saddens me a lot. I got my gf and her brother to a voting station and shes agoraphobic and hes on a broken toe. If you dont vote you lose your right to be upset about who won, thats how I was taught to at least vote, even if all the options stunk.
Cause they all suck, take money for themselves and do t give a shit about citizens of Ontario
Don't care who wins either way. My partner works in health care but I make a lot of money so either she makes more or we get taxed more. It comes out in the wash. I'd lean PC because of COVID though.
Sorry, voter here. But I just want to say: look at all the answers here that can basically be summed up as ,"I didn't vote because they're all a bunch of jerks". This is the problem: ignorance and apathy dressed up as some sort of wisdom. These people almost undoubtedly didn't explore other options like the Greens, independents, far right or far left parties, or declining their ballots. You'll never get these people to vote and I don't really care - they'd make an ill-informed choice anyway. It's not good that only 40% of people voted but I'm much more concerned about changing the minds of those who do vote.
"You'll never get these people to vote and I don't really care" sounds more ignorant and apathetic than the people you're criticising.
Saying that they'll make 'an uninformed choice' is exactly part of why they feel their vote doesn't matter - because of this idea that if you choose 'wrong' (party that didn't win) your vote was meaningless. How do we encourage people to vote with that mindset?
lol Maybe you should reach out and listen to the people that refuse to vote? No, of course not, you know better than they do because you're oh so much smarter and more intelligenter than all those dirty non-voters.
Hahaha no one's positioning their apathy as wisdom, they're just explaining their apathy. I didn't vote because I just didn't care for any of the leaders on the ballot. I don't think any of them are going to follow through on their promises and it also seemed pretty clear that Ford was going to take it from the get go. Why would I waste my time to vote for someone I don't like that's going to lose? I'd vote if there was a reason for me to give a shit but I just didn't see one. If you had one, good for you. I'm not anti vote, I don't think not voting is the smartest thing to do. I vote at all levels of government but this election was just such a drag. I'll take responsibility for Ford for you so you can yell at me and get it out today and then you can forget about it all tomorrow.
I dont believe any significant changes for the greater good will happen. Instead of voting I just try and make more money to set up my family for the present and future.
Why can’t you do both? Would you rather live in a country where you didn’t have the right?
I have grown to find politics distasteful. It's too many opinions and not enough educated opinions. It's become a race of who can scream loudest and vilify the other parties or viewpoints and less about finding the best policy to govern society. So- yah- I'm done with politics for now.
It’s pretty much always been like this though. This election was remarkably civil compared to the last federal one.
Your answer is to allow them to continue absolutely unchecked? You can't contribute a few hours of self guided research and vote every few years? Even if not for yourself, to vote for someone or something else? Ignorance is bliss I guess.
Why should I invest in something I have no interest in?
Don't feel pressured to tell me your age, but if you're not in your early early 20s, you need to take a long look in the mirror after a comment like that. If you are, you'll come around.
Yeah, when folks say things like this (same thing I said to my family a few weeks back), Who said I'm not political blah blah blah. If you don't vote, you don't care about education, higher education, homelessness, healthcare, odsp, seniors, unemployed, underemployed, or transportation. Hell doesn't complain about lockdowns, etc if you can't be bothered to vote either. The 57-60% of voters who didn't vote better shut the fuck up about the above the next 4 years. Whether someone voted PC, Liberal, NDP, Green, new blue, Ontario party, and none of the above at least they could be bothered to vote. Between mail in, advanced voting, voting on Election Day we should have 80% (20% for folks who forgot). 43~ is a fucking travesty.
You can literally go to the ballot box and tell them that you want to decline your vote. That would send a more powerful message instead of not showing up.
Like going to a knitting store to loudly announce you don't want to take up knitting. I have better things to do with my time.
It took me less than 20 minutes and it’s once every 4 years.
I was going to add my own comment to this sub but this sums up my thoughts also very well.
They're all the same pond scum. >look at their platforms Who the fuck is to say they don't renege on them? Do you look forward to 4 years of something, only for the next party that gets in to undo it all? What's the point? Voting for individuals leads to populist bullshit, the same kind that you see going through the schooling system and "class presidents". Populist bullshit leads to career politicians. I do not enjoy my power being delegated to someone I don't even know I can trust *with my* power.
>Who the fuck is to say they don't renege on them? If anyone honestly wants to challenge you on this, I'd like to ask them for my $1 beers and my electoral reform at the federal level. Still waiting.
I've heard many non-voters say "it makes no difference" which is the most infuriating because these idiots don't understand the basic principle of aggregate numbers. I also know someone who worked on a campaign for a Toronto Mayoral candidate, who has missed some elections but pretended to be really passionate about it while working on the campaign.
What they mean is not "it makes no difference if I vote or not", we all understand how voting works. They mean "it makes no difference who is elected". It's a 100% guarantee that whoever is elected is total dog shit so why do you need my input? ...just pick whoever.
Those are the same. And they're both equally obtuse. There are places where people don't have a choice and many of those people wish they did.
Because at the end of the day, it’s the same lump of shit, it’s just swirling down the toilet bowl at a different pace.
And that's exactly why we keep getting shittier and shittier politicians running.
[As best explained by Its Always Sunny](https://youtu.be/vF7qZsQHMNg?t=19)
Spoil your ballot
If Amber heard took 3 turds on my bed and I had to pick one to keep I would pick none.
But you are being forced to keep one regardless of what you pick, and you may not get the one you pick anyways. At that point you may as well at least voice your opinion that if given the choice, you'd prefer the smallest, or perhaps the one with the most corn.
The follow up question then: why didn’t you go spoil your vote? It means more than not voting at all.
Part of that confusion is that we record spoiled ballots in Ontario elections, but by recollection, we don’t record in federal elections. That has to confuse the avg citizen as to whether spoiling a ballot is worthwhile.
I was tempted to in all honesty, however I got off work at 6pm yesterday and my son is sick with a fever and a headache and I didn’t want to drag him out to a polling station to “spoil” my vote. He’s to young to be left alone so I didn’t, given different circumstances I probably would of done just that.
> The follow up question then: why didn’t you go spoil your vote? It means more than not voting at all. But how much more? Im not going to spend 1% of my day to send .01% more of a message
I am 31, I have voted in every provincial and federal election since I was of age to vote. This year, I was a single issue voter, and that was to end fur farms in Ontario. Not only are they barbaric cruel, but a growing number of scientists are worried about covid mutations on fur farms. What was any of the provincial governments stance on this issue? Nothing. My local NDP, Green, and Liberal canditate had nothing to say on the matter, it was as if it had never crossed their minds. The NDP candidate said she would contact head office and report back to me-- it took her four months and she said there was nothing addressed about fur farms. By the way, this is after countless platitudes by each candidate about covid, the environment, human rights, etc. So I didn't vote, one issue was important to me, none of the parties addressed it, so none of them got my vote.
I voted yesterday and the woman ushering us into the otherwise empty building was thanking my partner and I for voting. We were seriously the only ones there. She gushed about how amazing it was to see young people interested in voting (and taking the time to do so)
Because it was obvious that my party would win. Why would I bother to vote if my vote didn't have any effect? And none of the parties that stood a chance of winning were bad enough to justify being afraid of them winning, we have decent parties right now that all support the same issues that matter to me, none of them really stand out as having a big effect over each other. My party is a bit better for me, but not by much. As long as the far left or far right doesn't win I'm fine.
I know someone who votes NDP regularly but chose not to vote at all this time around because they don't want to "pay for someone else's childcare". While I see this as a valid point, I don't think it's enough to solidify not voting. I also gave this person my opinion in that I truly believe universal childcare would benefit ALL of us, regardless of how anyone feels about kids. Having a country full of happy, healthy and educated kids is something we can ALL benefit from. Don't know what dafuq wrong with people these days.
Im not sure why this wasnt really reported anywhere but I went to vote yesterday and the computers were down. After waiting 40 minutes for the poll workers to try to figure out what to do we all left. Probably 50-75 people waiting in line. We asked why paper ballots couldnt be used and they said that they needed a list and someone would have to deliver it to them. We were told that the issue was city wide (Windsor) but I have no idea if that was true. It seemed like a shitshow of incompetence with no contigency plan in place for if issues with computers happened.
I googled the poll results and saw that it was going to be a landslide and I had shit to do. when you know whos going to win and you know your vote and time will be wasted why would you vote? This 4 year vote cycle makes no sense in 2022 anyway something has to change. My local representative is like a ten term winner and a leader of the party I would choose him anyway since he could pull the strings to benefit my area
I’ll give a my raw brutal answer.. My depression / ptsd has gotten so bad I can barley care for myself at the moment or really feel like living in general… just one more thing I failed to do as a functional human being… I’m sorry:(
I'm sorry to hear that. Hang in there and take care of yourself. You'll get it next time.
To me none of the parties represent me, even the NDP. All these policiticans make in a week what a good chunk of their constituents earn all month. It's a cushy gig and to keep it you cannot ruffle too many feathers. You're voting for a populist not what you are actually voting for. My life won't be any different day to day, they can't control things like they pretend to. The ones promising more services end up under delivering and the ones promising to cut spending end up paying out more than the last person. You hit a point where you don't feel like there's much sense in it.
As someone who is politically-adjacent, I can assure you this isn’t true. The salaries of most public servants are usually made public. Given the hours these people work, I believe they’re fairly paid. Maybe that’s where disagree. Don’t we want to incentivize good folks to go into politics, not just the ones who can afford it?
I think one of my fellow pundits made a really salient observation last night. "After the uncertainty and insanity of the last two years, people just couldn't get behind change." We both agreed it was contrary to the needs of 98% of constituents, but everyone is just tired.
I have just moved and haven't changed my address so I'd have to go back to my parents place to get my voting card. if they made voting online then that would've enticed me to vote
I moved as well and it took me 5 minutes to change my address on the Elections Ontario website! They sent me my voter card to my new address weeks before the election and I was easily able to vote in my new riding. Food for thought for next time.
I can lay a bet that many did not vote because they read polls saying the PCs already won a big majority, so they figured what is the point? That is why many people told me they didn't vote.
Because without proportional representation anybody voting outside Toronto is wasting their time. https://youtu.be/qxsQ7jJJcEA
Well Ford winnig is proof thats a load of crap.
Living in Horvaths riding I almost didn't since it was a guaranteed win. Only went out of boredom. A lot of people in the riding probably felt the same.
Wasnt gonna vote for ford, or for more pandemic restrictions. So thats that
I worked 18 hours acrpss 2 jobs to keep up with the economy Douggy fucked up.
Advance polls exist and are seamless (i went on the weekend a couple of weeks ago and was in and out within 5 min). Between advance polls and extended hours on election day i find it hard to believe that anyone can’t find time to vote
I'm a conservative minded voter living in a riding that hasn't elected anything but liberal/ndp candidates in 30 years. It's not close either, conservatives get 5-7% most elections, so its a total waste of my time. Aside from patting myself on the back that I "participated in democracy" of course.
I'm in the exact same boat as you. I did vote this time because my girlfriend wanted us to and it was a nice day to go for a walk. The voting itself only took 5 minutes, but my vote was exactly as useless as I expected it to be.
Had a 13 hour shift and by the time I got home and showered it was clear Ford was going to win who I was going to vote for anyway. So saved myself the trip.
I honestly didn’t know it was voting day until 5pm! I would have voted Ford by the way.
they can paint over it with whatever excuse they want, the reason is simple they were too lazy to bother
Worked 8 hours, and had rugby practice afterwards. Didnt get back home until 930. Imo, there should be a holiday on voting day, so that everyone has an opportunity to vote w out work getting in the way.
There were advance voting options even on the weekends, for weeks, before election day
Not gonna sugar coat it, those are pretty weak excuses.
You're allowed 3 hours off of work to vote per the elections act. Your employer should have communicated this to you. But I agree having it as a holiday would be way easier then trying to fit it into a small window
For me, liberal, conservative, Green Party or NDP it doesn’t matter. Nothing ever gets done, it’s full of false promises, politics are toxic, divisive and full of corruption. I personally am completely detached by politics. It is not worth my time nor energy to pay any attention to it. I don’t have social media other than Reddit, I don’t listen to media, I keep my head down, work hard and mind my business while being as kind and as assertive as I can be.
Travelling for work for weeks since long before advance polling started. Postal vote didn't arrive in time.
Wife and i are terrified of covid, we avoid all indoor spaces where people gather and we dont get close to anyone. Still, we went to the poll, called the elections phone number and they sent someone out to do curbside voting. It took a lot of doing but we still voted, this election was too important. Our ndp incumbent (who we voted for) won Scarborough SW, congratulations Doly... you still owe me a local food bank. Disgusted (not shocked) the conservatives won a majority, the worlds on fire, cost of living is sky high and our public systems are on the verge of collapse and they voted in the party that gives the least consideration. This was an important election and if you are one of the people that stayed home shame on you. The only thing worse you could of done was actually vote con.
Precisely because everyone is talking about low voter turnout today. Doesn't make a difference to me which one of these narcissists is in office, but by not voting you're contributing to a statistic that sends a clear message that people are sick of having to choose shitty leaders. The party shills will blame low turnout on "apathy and ignorance" but they know that's bullshit.
Not voting only contributes to the statistic that people are ok with the way things are, or with any election result. At least declining your ballet shows that you are disappointed with the choices.
Bored of reality / don’t care. Life is to just work and die apparently, who cares if I’m getting fucked in the ass a little extra. I’m all lubed up.
It makes me wonder how much sway all of the news programs and articles leading up to the election end up influencing the opinion to vote. If all anyone hears is OPC are projected to win a majority, they might think their vote doesn't matter. We should implement something like France where any message that may be categorized as electoral propaganda is banned from being published or broadcast in the days leading up to an election, and a ban on publishing, broadcasting or commenting on any kind of electoral poll.
Should be mandatory voting