An email I sent to info@voxpoplabs.com. I was looking for a CBC email or twitter to send it to but couldn't find anything obvious. I'd already tweeted about this to @cbcottawa but that's probably not the right place.
Greetings
I participated in the Vote Compass exercise today. I noticed that in your "how would you vote if the election was held today" and "how did you vote last time" you omitted the option of declining your ballot.
Declining the ballot is different from a spoiled or blank ballot, in that in a spoiled ballot the voter's intention is unclear. Alternatively, a declined ballot is a way that a voter can say to all parties that they are engaged enough to come out and participate in the process, but none of the options offered are acceptable.
In 2014, more than 22000 Ontarians declined their ballot (source: https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/06/19/ontario_election_sees_highest_number_of_declined_ballots_since_1975.html). While not a statistically significant number, the article notes that this is a high-point of declined ballots for Ontario which was probably related to increased voter awareness of this being an option.
One could argue in an extreme case, an elected official (or, indeed, a government) that was elected with more declined ballots than properly filed ballots would have serious questions of having a legitimate mandate from the voters.
Beyond me having to explain to the polling official what they needed to do, my personal experience with declining the ballot went smoothly in 2014. If more widely exercised, I would want changes made to the process in that
A) I had to verbally decline my ballot; and
B) a written notation was made on my name in the voters list used by the polling officials, creating a permanent record that I had declined my ballot.
Both of these requirements would seem to defeat my right to a secret ballot.
My hope is that if enough ballots are declined, the political parties will observe that there is a constituency that is both engaged and demonstrably willing to vote, and will adjust their platforms to capture these votes.
In conclusion, I encourage you to adjust the Vote Compass application for future provincial elections, and also note that I find that the word "ballot" looks funny after you type it out a bunch of times in an email.
Sincerely,
David Mackintosh
Kanata-Carleton
