Vote

After being politically active in my youth (10 years ago = youth??) I am now firmly apolitical mainly due to my rising overall levels of cynicism. This election is no different. That being said, I have always and will always vote.

But my one big complaint is at least somewhat related to what Gord has mentioned here. A general lack of communication from candidates. Out of the whole campaign I got 2 pieces of electoral mail, both from the incumbent candidate, one pointing out what has been achieved since the last election and one reminding me to vote.

A Conservative will be elected in my riding no question. However I didn't receive one phone call, one flyer, one door knock or anything at all from the 5 other candidates in my riding. Hell I showed up at the voting booth today and found out there were two three! candidates I had never even seen a sign for and didn't know their names (one of them was the Green candidate - the Greens made the inexcusably bad decision to put up "Green" signs without candidate names on them). If I was running for election versus a juggernaut I'd knock doors until my hand bled.

Maybe I am old-fashioned but perhaps the problem with voter apathy is the lack of face to face communication. I dislike town-hall debates as they tend to turn into partisan rant-fests, but I want to see my candidate face to face, or at least know their freaking name before I show up to vote. I know from the past that I have been favourably inclined towards candidates who show up to shake my hand and explain their platform even if I am fundamentally opposed to every one of their platform items. Not saying I would vote for them, but more favourable? Yes. In one case in the past during a city election I threw my vote to the one guy (was a 22 yr old student) who was the only candidate to show up at my condo (he lost... huge).

Is this due to the net and overall web presence increasing? Should I feel more attached to a candidate due to a facebook page or a twitter stream? Perhaps some will. However I feel that you bring back the door knocking and I'd bet we'd see an increase in voter participation. This is one case where web 2.0-ness doesn't cut it for me.

If I don't know a candidate's name by the end of the election did they really run?