The Problem With Banning Polls
Public opinion polling isn't the thing harming voter turnout.
What’s The Issue At Hand?
Ontario’s chief electoral officer put forward a report on the 2022 Ontario election detailing several suggestions that should be taken ahead of the next election. Among the recommendations put forward was a suggestion to ban the publication of opinion polls up to two weeks prior to election day. But why was this suggestion made?
The previous Ontario election had a voter turnout of just under 44%, meaning 2-in-5 Ontarians bothered to head to the polls in an election that handed Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives an additional sixteen seats. That gain in seats is despite the PC’s only gaining 0.3% more of the vote compared to their previous election result.
The electoral officer’s argument is clear: Opinion polling that showed the PC’s ahead of the other parties made voters stay home, therefore leading to a lower voter turnout.
Do Opinion Polls Actually Push Down Voter Turnout?
The research surrounding this topic is mixed, if not outright being inconclusive.
To make a long story short, studies say that opinion polls can both push down, but also push up, voter turnout. In elections where one party is running away with it in the polls, studies suggest that polls can push down voter turnout. After all, why bother voting if the outcome seems guaranteed?
On the other hand, elections that have two parties close in the polls may push voter turnout up due to an imperative to go out and vote (Strategic voting is often cited in these instances). Some studies have also suggested polls that show one party lagging behind the leading party may create an underdog effect wherein voters feel compelled to support the second-place party simply because they’re behind. In turn, more voters head to the polls to support the underdog in hopes of pushing them over the finish line.
Simply put, the science isn’t settled on this issue one way or the other.
So, this raises the question: What factors do push voter turnout down?
Polling Station Plummets
In my blunt and honest opinion, there are much greater forces at work that push down voter turnout in our elections than opinion polls.
In 2022, we saw a number of ridings have their polling station availabilities slashed. The most extreme example of this was in the riding of Spadina-Fort York, a downtown Toronto riding. In 2018 the riding had a total of 116 polling stations but in 2022, thanks in part to social distancing protocols due to Covid, the riding saw their number of polling stations tank to 29.
The riding had a voter turnout of 53.6% in 2018 which was almost on par with the province-wide turnout of 56.7%. Yet in 2022, the voter turnout in the riding plummeted to 33.7% while the provincial turnout was closer to 44%.
Here’s a list of other ridings in the 2022 election that saw their polling stations reduced:
Don Valley North: 32% reduction
Timmins: 31% reduction
Huron-Bruce: 25% reduction
Cambridge: 24% reduction
Parkdale-High Park: 23% reduction
Parry Sound-Muskoka: 22% reduction
Northumberland-Peterborough South: 21% reduction
Nipissing: 20% reduction
Mississauga Centre: 20% reduction
Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes: 20% reduction
There were 751 fewer polling locations in 2022 than there were in 2018. If people have to go further and further out of their way in order to vote, they simply won’t vote.
Alright Then, Keep Your (Polling) Secrets
Let’s say we ban polling from being released by media and pollsters two weeks out from election day. What are we going to do if, for instance, a Liberal candidate from a reportedly competitive riding says they have internal polling that has them well ahead of their competitors? What if the PC party president says they’re well ahead of everyone else, so much so it’s practically a landslide?
It goes without say that politicians and parties, on the issue of their electability during an election, may not be the most honest when it comes to these kinds of things. Long have we had parties saying they’re well ahead during an election and long have we had candidates saying the same thing. But we all know why these attempts have never worked in the past and the answer is staring us in the face already.
Public polling allows us to confirm or repudiate parties and politicians who say they’re in the lead when, in actuality, they’re not.
There’s an infamous example from the 2022 election wherein Kate Graham, the Liberal candidate in London North Centre, released a poll their campaign conducted that said they were well ahead of the incumbent NDP. Now, anyone in the election sphere didn’t buy this for a second as there was no evidence that would suggest that the Liberals were on track to win LNC.
But what if we didn’t have public polling available?
The poll that Graham’s campaign posted was done well within the suggested two-week period before election day. What if they drop the poll the day before polls are barred from being released? Who’s going to be able to come forward and say, “This just isn’t true” or “This is accurate given how the rest of the province is moving” without the ability to have public opinion polling made public to confirm as much?
To make a long story short, barring polling will simply allow for political parties to fib about how they’re really doing. Every party leader will say, '“We’re the ones in the lead!” while the public will be completely unaware of the actual situation. But do you know who will know the real situation? The parties who will still have real internal polling conducted on their behalf that will give them knowledge as to how they should conduct the rest of their campaigns.
Blame The Parties, Not The Polls
The last point I’ll make is fairly subjective. Nevertheless, I think the greater issue here is not the state of political polling in Canada but rather the state of our political parties.
Personally, during the previous Ontario election I felt pretty hung out to dry as a voter. As you can imagine I paid close attention to the election and followed what each of the parties had to offer. Honestly, it was lackluster to say the least. None of the parties really offered up anything that was inspiring or hopeful for the issues our province faces. Of course, each of the parties had their niche issues that only they stood for but none of them made a concerted effort to win over voters in my opinion and this is one of the gripes I have over this issue of low voter turnout.
When parties fail to represent voters or fail to offer alternatives that voters feel like are alternatives, they lose people to apathy. Apathy is the greatest driver of voter turnout and apathy can have many moving parts to it. One party dominating the province? Apathy. Opposition parties bickering and splitting the vote? Apathy. Elections made harder or more tedious to vote in? Apathy.
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How Can We Drive Voter Turnout?
There are a few ways that we can make voter turnout go up in future elections, but once again banning political polling isn’t going to be the thing that drives turnout. So what can we do?
First off, make election day a holiday. It’s a worn suggestion it’s true. However, giving people further opportunities to take time off to go and vote is worth it. Plus, it would be a good reminder to folks to go out and vote if they know why the day is a holiday to begin with.
Secondly, expand polling locations. Advanced voting is great, and I think we should make advanced voting as expansive as possible, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of polling stations on election day. The easier it is for someone to get to a polling station, the more likely they are to actually go out and vote.
Now these are two easy things that we can do to increase voter turnout in the short term. In the long term however, I think we need greater structural changes.
I’ve been a proponent of turning our civics and careers mandatory credit in high school into two separate mandatory courses. I found the half-credit situation to be lacking and it never gave educators enough time to properly engross students in the importance of our politics and the workings of our government.
Our method of elections are also flawed and outdated. Anyone who’s followed Polling Canada for any substantial amount of time knows that I’m an advocate for replacing our single-member plurality (First past the post) with some variation of proportional representation.
I know what it’s like living in a riding where the party I voted for was never going to win the election and how true that is for millions of Ontarians and Canadians. If you want people to go out and vote, you must make them feel like their vote is actually being counted. Because for so many of us, our current electoral system completely ignores the voices of so many voters.
Finally, because I know this has been brought up a lot, I don’t think mandatory voting is a good way of increasing voter turnout. You want people voting in our elections because they want to go out and vote, not because they’re forced to go out to vote, otherwise they’ll be fined.