![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com\/2011\/05\/na0504-voter-turnout1.jpg?w=620&h=376\")
<\/p>\nIt’s election time again.\u00a0As we all should know, there is a Federal Election on October 19, 2015.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In 2011, the voter turnout was 61.4%. This means that 38.6% of the eligible voters did not exercise their right to vote.<\/p>\n
![\"2011](\"https:\/\/www.sfu.ca\/~aheard\/elections\/2011-votes.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Looking at the graph above, we can see that the Conservative party won the election with 39.6%. If the number of voters who didn’t vote in the election were considered a political party, they would have been the official opposition. If 1% of the voters who voted for the conservatives voted for this new party, this new party would have won the election! If 2% of any of the other parties voted for this new party…they would have won the election!<\/p>\n
The scenario listed above illustrates what happens when people don’t vote. \u00a0What this doesn’t discuss is who<\/em> isn’t voting. Lower voter turnouts usually indicate that young voters didn’t vote. Many of our members fall into the category of young voters.<\/p>\n We also have many members who work continuous shifts. Many of our members also work far away from home.<\/p>\n The main reason why our members don’t vote is simple….we’re working!<\/p>\n The hard part for our membership\u00a0is that the\u00a0current government has changed many of the rules that govern how people in Canada can vote.\u00a0Many of our members will be away from their homes on Election day…. and that will make it far harder for our members to exercise their right.<\/p>\n Elections Canada has provided the option to\u00a0use of what is called a\u00a0“Special Ballot”. This ballot can be filled out online<\/a>\u00a0or downloaded from\u00a0the Elections Canada website<\/a>. This will allow the member to download the required form which needs to be filled out and either brought to the member’s local Elections Canada office<\/a>\u00a0or returned to the local Elections Canada office by mail. Returning the form to the local Elections Canada office will allow the member to vote at the office. The mailing from the Elections office will include a ballot and a return envelope and will allow the member to return the ballot through the mail. These ballots must be in the Elections Office by no later than the Tuesday prior to the election. Since we’re including Canada post in the equation, the member needs to make sure to allow enough time for the package to arrive and be returned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please take the time to vote!!!<\/p>\n It’s election time again.\u00a0As we all should know, there is a Federal Election on October<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14,11],"tags":[37,36],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-information","category-local-lodge-99","category-local-news","tag-canada","tag-election"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","chromenews-featured":"","chromenews-large":"","chromenews-medium":""},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"General Information<\/a> Local Lodge 99<\/a> Local News<\/a>","tag_info":"Local News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Facebook\"](\"http:\/\/iamaw99.ca\/wordpressinstall\/wp-content\/plugins\/simple-socnets\/icons\/facebook.png\")
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