Maybe they were tucked up in bed early, had turned off the TV in disgust or perhaps there were a few too young to partake of the free drink on offer at Ceili’s pub?
Whatever the reason, not as many of the youth vote as expected turned out for the election pub night organized by local students on Monday.
Daniel Ribi, Milica Komad and Alex Lund-Murray, via a Facebook event page, had hoped to tempt somewhere between 50 and 100 fresh faces to the Westminster Highway watering hole with a free drink if they could prove they made their mark — something that less and less 18-25-year-olds appear to do.
Of the 30 brave souls who watched the pub’s TVs intently as the Liberal’s red tide swept across the nation, most, said Lund-Murray, were pulling for the Grits, eager to see an end to the Harper regime.
“It’s not what we expected and we were all pretty shocked,” she said of the national result.
“We had hoped for a few more people (to come out), but it was definitely worthwhile.”
Lund-Murray said she and her fellow students were surprised at how long it took to count the votes in the Richmond Centre riding, one of the last to be finalized in the country.
The majority of her drinking buddies were pulling for a Lawrence Woo upset, she said, adding that “many felt (Alice) Wong had been there too long.”
“Some of them had voted in that riding and had voted strategically (to get Wong out).”
Their votes kept it interesting, but it wasn’t enough to tip the scale, with Wong holding onto her seat by just 463 ballots.
