Hope for higher turnout
Posted Apr 14, 2011 05:13:37 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A higher turnout in this election would hurt the ruling party.
That’s the mantra of Kitchener-Waterloo Green Party candidate Cathy MacLellan, who is optimistic of an improvement on the 58% turnout in the 2008 federal election.
Many people have pointed to the “10,000 Liberals” that stayed home in 2008, effectively costing incumbent Andrew Telegdi his seat as he lost to Conservative Peter Braid by just 17 votes. MacLellan is well aware that she’s in a competition for many of those same voters whom she hopes will be lured back to the polls this time around.
“I have a way of working collaboratively with a lot of different groups of people and I think that’s very much what this riding is about,” MacLellan says in an interview with 570 News. “I think this is what young people want and young people are the future of this riding and certainly the future of this country.”
She knows she has her work cut out for her in a riding that was held by Telegdi for 15 years and has been served by Braid for the past three. But MacLellan is insistent that the Green Party offers a viable alternative.
“When you go onto the surface of, say, the Liberal platform, you’re not going to find it that different from the Conservative platform,” MacLellan notes. “I offer something very different and I think people are ready for that. We’re going to increase the voter turnout here and that actually hurts the ruling party.”
MacLellan says the Conservative party benefits from low voter turnout.
As for ways of increasing the level of engagement with voters and, ultimately, voter turnout, MacLellan says forums such as the one provided in our 570 News online chat are a good way of reaching out.
“I enjoyed it. I think it’s great,” she enthused. “I want to increase engagement in the political process and I think I can do that. And this is one forum that, obviously by the number of questions and responses, people were into it. And I like that.”
Click here for a complete transcript of MacLellan’s chat.
