Ontario Provincial Election Short research paper

Pages:

4

Academic Level:

College

Paper Type:

Annotated Bibliography

Discipline:

Political Science

Paper details

Write a short research essay on one of the following questions related to the 2022 Ontario provincial election. Your answer should refer to course readings and external scholarly resources that are relevant to your topic.

Undergraduate papers should be about 5-6 double-spaced pages in length (not including a required title page, in-text citations and a list of references). Essays that do not include citations and a reference list will be assigned a grade of “0”. Your essay should include an introductory paragraph with your argument/thesis, a body where you state and develop your arguments with supporting evidence, and a brief conclusion.


QUESTIONS (choose one):

1. Compare election turnout (based on preliminary estimates) in the 2022 Ontario provincial election to turnout rates in recent provincial and federal elections. Discuss some factors that may help explain participation in the 2022 election.

2. Analyze how well the single member plurality electoral system used in the Ontario election translated individual or group-based preferences into representation at Queen’s Park. The analysis should consider province-wide results, as well as the results in electoral districts that are of interest to you. Based on your analysis, would you recommend electoral reform? Why or why not?

3. Miriam Smith discusses the differences between brokerage parties and ideological parties. After researching the positions that three provincial parties adopted on 2-3 policy issues that are of interest to you, would you conclude that Ontarians were given distinct choices in this election? Why or why not?

4. Choose an advocacy group or social movement of interest that attempted to frame political debates and/or mobilize their supporters to turn out and vote a particular way in the Ontario provincial election. Discuss the discourse and strategies it employed, and the factors that would undermine and strengthen the effectiveness of its efforts.

5. During elections, some groups organize strategic voting campaigns, in which they encourage their followers to cast a vote for their second-choice candidate if that candidate has the best chance of winning the district. Choose a strategic voting campaign (#NotOneSeat.ca is an example). Briefly discuss its origins, mandate and strategic voting campaign plan. Develop your own analytical framework to assess the campaign’s success after the election results have been tallied.

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Ontario Provincial Election

 

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Ontario Provincial Election

Question One

            Ontario province had the lowest turnout in the latest 2022 election having about 43.5% of the eligible voters casting their votes in the preliminary elections. Because there are more than 10.7 million eligible voters in the province, the number of voters cast ballots was only around 4.5 million. Therefore, the number of voters cast is 13.5% less than the provincial election turnout experienced in 2018. The only other election in which the voter turnout was lower than 50 percent was in 2011 when just 48 percent of those over the age of 18 cast their ballots. There has never been another election in the province's history in which the voter turnout was so low (Ontario, 2022). Many factors have been attributed to the low turnout making the people of Ontario less motivated on the day of the election, like the media and lack of engagement with the population. It is also likely that many voters did not understand what they were voting for.

Since 1923, there has been the most drop in the turnout of voters in the 2022 Ontario election compared to the previous consecutive elections. One way to determine the turnout is to compare the number of votes cast against the number of licensed electors. Another way is to evaluate votes cast against the estimated eligible electorate for that election. Essentially, there were 124 seats to be grabbed in the election, with each party aiming at having more than 63 seats to emerge the winner. The progressive conservatives gained the most votes (Ontario, 2022). In the coming elections, people need to hear about what the candidate will do and not what the other competitors will not do. The winning team won just 1.9 million votes, translating into 83 seats. The winning party did not seem concerned with the low voter turnout and insisted that they had set a clear direction for the people and what they were willing to do (Laschever & Meyer, 2021). This is a cause for concern because it is essential to have an informed representation of the people in government to make good decisions on behalf of their constituents. Several factors may help explain this.

Voters felt burdened and non-interested since many thought they would have less impact in the elections than in previous years. Additionally, there was a dilemma on who was the best among the oppositions. Many eligible voters had grown weary of the back-and-forth argumentation between opposing parties and were frustrated with their lack of influence in the political process (Laschever & Meyer, 2021). As a result, they were not interested in politics; therefore, their turnout rate was lower than usual. Political knowledge is highly associated with a high voter turnout. It is possible that most people in the region did not have sufficient knowledge to make decisions on the party platforms (Sevi & Blais, 2022). There was a belief that not voting would still enable them to express their opinion, and it wasn't worth going out to vote. Additionally, some felt that there was a lack of efficacy linked to the non-voting behavior and many Ontarians thought their vote would not matter (Ontario, 2022).

The low participation can be attributed to several factors, including a lack of interest, uncertainty over the outcome, and voter fatigue (Mahoney & MOORE, 2022). However, many voters chose not to vote because they felt that their vote would not change the political course of Ontario. In addition, many did not feel the election strongly impacted their lives, for example, whether a party's plan to lower electricity prices would affect people's daily lives (Graham et al., 2020). Further, many voters were unsure of their intended choice because deciding to vote is more critical when candidates have been vying, and they have slight differences or almost the same manifesto. Voters may have also been exhausted and discouraged by previous elections in which their stakes were not high enough.

The province's demography could also have significantly contributed to the experienced turnout (DeClerq, 2022). Ontario's population is aging, with the elderly making up a more significant percentage overall than the rest of Canada. As a result, the average voter turnout for an Ontario provincial election is typically lower than in the rest of Canada (Powers, 2022). This shift resulted in many people not voting at all. Additionally, many young people are disillusioned with politics because they feel candidates aren't speaking to their needs. Although not necessarily related directly to voter turnout, there was a public outcry (Ontario, 2022). In addition, many people were disappointed that their preferred candidate did not win previous positions leading up to the election and therefore did not vote at all.

Also, the low participation may be attributed to how the candidates presented their platforms and how the media covered and portrayed them (DeClerq, 2022). There was little media coverage and no primary debates to heighten awareness of election issues. While the process of selecting a new government may seem fairly straightforward, with relatively few issues being debated, there are still several ways in which the electoral outcome could be influenced. This can include parties running attractive candidates and/or platforms that inspire citizens to take an interest or vote (DeClerq, 2022). It can also include various issues during the election period that could affect voter perception (e.g., labor conflicts, local scandals).

 In addition, a large number of voters were turned off by the crude language used by some candidates, especially during televised debates. Many voters have felt that the aspirants were only selling agendas of hatred against their competitors instead of focusing on their agendas. The popularity of new political parties also caused a decrease in voter turnout; many disgruntled voters did not want to vote for any party because they believed that all politicians were corrupt. There was also an expectation among certain voters that Premier Delacourt would win her third term, and it did not matter who the opposition leader was (Van Deth, 2014). Another factor may have been the rise of populism and its influence on politics, which led to many voters feeling apathetic about or even cynical about politicians and elections overall.

All the above factors that led to the low turnout in Ontario can be justified since there are testimonials of how people decided not to have a participation in the elections. The media presented these as a poor campaign strategy, leadership, and lack of engagement with the voters. The media may have spoken about these issues in the days before the election, but it did not reach all voters, as evidenced by the low turnout from many groups like youth and seniors. Voters' burnout from previous elections was another source of voter apathy leading up to any election. Many people felt like the government had already been running for too long, and it was time for someone else to take control, although they said they would have less impact on the change. In addition, there was a general lack of interest among specific demographics that might have been affected by some of the policies put forward by both political parties. There was also the party leaders' willingness at all times to attack each other rather than offer solutions directly affected young people who are most likely to have their political beliefs shaped by television ads and debates.

In conclusion, a shallow turnout in voting at the 2022 Ontario provincial election was contributed to by various factors. Ontarians lack interest in elections and politics, but there were also serious issues with education and information given to voters. A number of other factors contributed to this low turnout, including a lack of clarity on voting day, problems with polling stations, and dysfunction with online voting. This is due to a lack of knowledge of how safe online voting is, if a huge number of people will actually use it and if it would even result in higher voter turnout. Preventing this occurrence and increasing participation if online voting is implemented will be challenging to educate voters on how it works and let them know that it is secure. These factors were compounded by voter dissatisfaction with politicians and political parties, distrust of new technology, an absence of competitive candidates, an increasing polarization between parties on critical issues, and concerns about the fairness of elections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

DeClerq, K. (2022). Ontario records the lowest voter turnout in election history. CP24.https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-records-lowest-voter-turnout-in-election-history-1.5931459.

Graham, N., Carroll, W. K., & Chen, D. (2019). Big Oil's Political Reach: Mapping Fossil Fuel Lobbying from Harper to Trudeau. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/big-oil%E2%80%99s-political-reach

Laschever, E., & Meyer, D. S. (2021). Growth and decline of opposing movements: Gun control and rights, 1945–2015. Mobilization, 26(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-26-1-1

Mahoney, J., & MOORE, O. (2022). Ontario's record-low voter turnout is 'not a good sign for our democracy,' a political observer says. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ontario-election-results-voter-turnout/.

Ontario, E. (2022). Home. Official Election Results. https://www.elections.on.ca/en.html

Powers, L. (2022). Ontario may have just seen the lowest voter turnout in its history | CBC News. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/lowest-voter-turnout-ontario-history-elections-1.6476344.

Rohlinger, D. A. (2020). Persuasion and Non-Party Groups in the Digital Age. The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion, 321.

Sevi, S., & Blais, A. (2022). Does Voting in One Election Reduce the Expected Cost of Voting in Subsequent Elections?. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 1-10.

Van Deth, J. W. (2014). A conceptual map of political participation. Acta Politica, 49(3), 349-367. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/ap.2014.6