The results may be preliminary and there are still some mail-in ballots to be counted, but Richmond slipped to an all-time new low Tuesday night.
The Richmond Centre riding which had the second lowest voter turnout in 2009s provincial election now cant fall any further in the province for ballots cast per registered voters.
The early numbers from Elections BC shows the Centre riding recording an embarrassing 38.9 per cent turnout (less than two in every five potential voters bothered to make their mark), down 1.7 per cent from four years ago.
This was despite Elections BC going out of its way to publicize the election and the riding enjoying renewed vigour in terms of an unprecedented six Asian candidates.
And, despite a slight upward provincial trend (up 1.25 per cent), Richmond East (43.9) and Richmond-Steveston (51) also trickled further down (0.8 and 0.2 per cent respectively).
Absentee and mail-in ballots will not be counted until May 27 and such votes accounted for six per cent of the provincial turnout in 2009, so Richmonds figures may still rise.
Many people in Richmond having English as a second language may also be a reason for the downward trend in voter turnouts in Richmond and Richmond Centre in particular.
But Heather Harrison, co-coordinator of policy studies and sustainability at Kwantlen university, said its no surprise that the student demographic stays at home on voting day.
When I talk to the students about voting to try to get the policy you want to see in government, a common response is, I dont understand the issues, so I dont feel its appropriate, said Harrison.
It sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but they feel disconnected from the process. They feel their vote is not counting for anything.
I think they feel completely powerless and overwhelmed by the problems and theyre not seeing politicians providing solutions.
Name-calling, mud-slinging and political point-scoring is also turning the younger voter off, according to Harrison.
The modern political dynamic has rendered much of the student vote redundant, she added.
Running positive campaigns doesnt seem to be working, but I dont know if there are any easy solutions for the politicians as theyre caught in a system that promotes negativity and voter apathy.
Greg Millard, professor of political science at Kwantlen, agreed that youth disengagment continues to play a major role in ever decreasing voter turnouts.
However, Millard said cultural shifts in the post-war era are also a significant contributing factor.
We live in an age of instant gratification and mass entertainments, Millard told the News.
But politics is always going to be a challenging matter of making trade-offs among various viewpoints and stakeholders, which is tough going compared to flashy celebrities, glamourous technologies and instant entertainments. So people tune it out.
Millard was also adamant that the continuing trend of lower and lower voter turnouts does nothing but help the Liberal government of the day in B.C.
The NDP drew disproportionate support from younger voters, but younger voters generally dont vote, and did not do so in large numbers this time either, he insisted.
Had the NDP been able to mobilize its base to go out and vote, both the NDPs vote share and the overall popular vote would have been higher.
So low turnout certainly helped the Liberals. This is usually true of parties that draw support from older demographics, given that older people do vote in larger numbers.
