Will the long federal election campaign affect voter interest?

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Eleven weeks of ads, events, and door-knocking are ahead of us.

How will such a long lead-up to the federal election impact voter interest?

Despite the push from parties to have you make up your mind, for most people, the first part of the campaign period will probably just be background noise, says UBC political scientist Richard Johnston.

“Voters don’t tend to tune into elections until there’s about three weeks left to go… The other thing I guess is that, the longer the campaign, the greater the opportunity for a gaffe, a scandal, or a misstep — and that could stir interest,” he adds.

Johnston says there is lots of evidence from longer campaigns, like those in the US, that interest ramps up closer to the event. “There is a sense in which there’s plenty of time to make up your mind if you haven’t done so already — so why bother?”

We asked Johnston whether longer campaign periods have ended with higher or lower turnout at the ballot box than shorter periods:

“Campaigns used to be longer. Before 1997, campaigns lasted seven or more weeks because of the different technology, enumeration of the population, and so on. For example, the 1980 campaign, which took place under unusual circumstances, was about 60 days long. It’s also true that turnout was higher in those days. Whether turnout was higher because campaigns were longer, I don’t know — nobody does.”

This will be the longest campaign period since the 1920s. Voting day is October 19th.

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