A common issue with journalists is that readers will complain about a story based on a headline or after only reading the first two paragraphs.
A reader will lodge criticism at the journalist by listing points that, it turns out, are actually addressed in the story.
Meaning, they didn’t read the news story until the very end.
It turns out it’s the same thing for many people who vote in municipal elections.
Last week, the City of Vancouver voted to switch from an alphabetical to a randomized name order on the ballot for the 2018 civic election.
The reason is that a city report cited evidence that people were voting for candidates with names that began with letters in the early part of the alphabet – meaning they didn’t scroll down to the end of the ballot form. (This might be why there are so few candidates with names that start with Z, although, in New Westminster, five-term city councillor Lorrie Williams seems to have bucked the trend.)
Recent Vancouver elections showed that many candidates with last names starting with A, B, C and D were elected to city council – six out 10 in 2005, four out of 10 in 2008 and 2011, and five out of 10 in 2014.
This editorial isn’t about the decision to switch to a randomized name ballot, or to urge New Westminster council to consider making a change – although we wouldn’t necessarily mind if they did that.
No, this editorial is addressed to those few local residents who actually show up to vote in civic elections.
We’re asking you to take the time to get to know who is running in the election, and then actually read the ballot all the way until the end before making your decision.
It’s bad enough that only about one-quarter of eligible voters exercise their democratic right in civic elections. But to think that those who are voting don’t bother to look at the entire ballot is distressing.
During the next few months there will be ample amounts of information about all the candidates running.
If you don’t think that the first letter of a candidate’s name makes a difference, consider who voted against the Vancouver motion: Adriane Carr, Melissa De Genova and Elizabeth Ball.
