In the 2011 municipal election, voter turnout in the Tri-Cities was simply embarrassing. Only 22% of eligible voters went to the polls in Coquitlam while 19% cast votes in Port Coquitlam and 27% in Port Moody.
Unlike my colleague opposite, I'm not going to throw my arms up in the air and say "The heck with it."
I think we need aggressive solutions to counter this anti-democratic trend and one option is to lower the minimum voting age to 16 years.
It has worked in other jurisdictions, most recently in Scotland.
The Scots allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to register to vote in last month's independence referendum and 109,533 of them did. According to reports, both the pro-union and pro-independence camps sent teacher-resource kits to schools, which in turn were used to organize in-class debates.
It paid off: Students were engaged. Total voter turnout is pegged at approximately 85%, meaning that this demographic turned out in big numbers.
And if they're engaged at age 16, the theory is that they'll vote in larger numbers in their 20s, 30s and beyond
Currently, a 16-year-old can vote - with no exceptions - in Austria, Nicaragua, Brazil and Ecuador. And according to experts, those examples prove that 16- and 17-year-olds are as competent to vote as young adults.
"Results from Austria show that turnout of 16- and 17-year-olds is, in fact, higher than turnout of older first-time voters, and it is nearly as high as overall turnout," Eva Zeglovits, from the University of Vienna, wrote for an online debate.
"Moreover, although teenage voters are still less interested than adult voters, they are able to make an informed choice. The congruence between attitudes and the vote choice of teenage voters is comparable to adult voters. Austrian teenage voters seem to be mature enough to participate and to make a meaningful vote choice."
Over the past several years, the powers that be have tried get-out-the-vote campaigns, vote mobs and, in some jurisdictions, online voting as a means to increase turnout. Those ideas clearly haven't worked.
Lowering the minimum voting age to 16 is not a fix-all - we might still need mandatory voting or some form proportional representation - but, for the sake of democracy, isn't it worth a shot?
