"If there is a weapon in the political consultant’s arsenal more fundamentally anti-democratic than voter suppression," writes Warren Kinsella, "I don’t know what it is."The long-time Liberal strategist and campaign war-room operative should know whereof he speaks. Kinsella believes that Conservative ads attacking then-leader Stephane Dion kept a million potential Liberal votes on the sidelines of the 2008 election, helping the Tories eke out a minority.
As the current tale of robocalls and election-day duplicity evolves, we’re going to hear a lot more about voter suppression, how it works and what might be done about it. If anything.
Voter suppression takes many forms, but it generally signifies a party’s use of co-ordinated messaging to discourage supporters of rival parties from voting. If you can’t persuade people to vote for you, persuade them not to vote at all. It sounds illegal and probably should be, but the law isn’t crystal clear on that.
So parties spend a lot of time and money to identify their own and their opponents’ supporters. Once that’s done, they go all out to get their own people to the polls. If suppression tactics keep non-supporters home, then every one of the suppressing party’s votes carries more weight.
To political scientist David Johnson, it’s one of "the dark arts (of politics), to suppress and attack the vote of your opponents."
The Cape Breton University professor says he first started hearing about voter suppression as a political strategy at conferences in the U.S. during the 1980s. It has since been developed to an art form in American politics, where systematic campaigns try to keep targeted voters away from ballot boxes.
Since it works there, it had to migrate here, just like the pervasive attack ads that now stain our politics. The Conservatives made themselves the party of attack ads, so it’s not much of a stretch to believe they were behind the robocalls and other suppression actions.
Johnson describes calls which set out to antagonize, alienate or mislead voters as "another version of attack ads, but directly targeted to you on your telephone."
No party admits using voter suppression as a campaign tool, but it is widespread. That’s why you rarely hear active politicians complain about falling turnout. To the parties, it doesn’t matter how many people vote. What matters is carving up the vote that does show up.
And while the national Conservative campaign has not been indisputably linked to the robocall affair and the prime minister denies involvement, something fishy has taken place. Whether it’s a criminal conspiracy or just bad communications will require thorough investigation.
Elections Canada is on the case, based on parts of the Elections Act which outlaw any action taken to prevent anyone from voting. It outlaws impersonation of Elections Canada officials, which is a key allegation in the robocall affair. But does it really ban suppression?
Votes are suppressed in many ways, not always overtly. Politics turns a lot of people off and most of them believe their votes don’t matter anyway. Most of those people won’t bother to vote. Whose fault is that?
Even our election rules dampen turnout. Some experts say demanding photo ID at polling stations is a non-partisan but effective form of vote suppression. Requiring a government-issued proof of identification fights fraud, but also limits participation by seniors, low-income citizens and the marginalized.
Politicians also suppress voting by the use of harsh or frightening messages, such as those in attack ads. Just the basic tenor of current politics — name-calling, accusations of secret agendas, comparing opponents to traitors or child pornographers — alienates Canadians who are not deeply interested in politics.
Academic research suggests that nasty campaign tactics work best on disengaged and poorly informed voters. That’s a pretty big group, so the temptation to indulge is strong.
Parties will usually do what it takes to win. As voters, we should educate ourselves to recognize these tactics for what they are. Then we can decide, legalities aside, whether parties using such methods are worthy of our support or whether they and their unethical works should be deemed unsuitable to govern.
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: Dan Leger
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