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Voters and Nonvoters: The Problem of Turnout in the Nineteenth Century: Southwestern Ontario as a Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Gail G. Campbell
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Extract

Canadian Political Analysts generally agree that nonvoters have played a decisive role in determining the outcome of elections in the twentieth century. Political scientists have identified categories of nonvoters with some degree of precision. They tell us that in twentieth-century Canada nonvoting is often related to such socioeconomic factors as education, occupation, and income. These ‘class’ indicators are, in turn, often associated with a low level of political information and a low sense of political efficacy. Age and sex have also been associated with nonvoting in the twentieth century. The very young and the very old are less likely to vote. And women are slightly less likely to vote than men. Some Canadian analysts have argued that Catholics, and, more specifically, French Canadian Catholics, vote less often than Protestants, and that farmers vote more consistently than do urban dwellers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 187 - 210
Copyright
copyright © Social Science History Association 1987 

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