Aiming to boost voter turnout in one of the demographics least likely to cast a ballot, the City and District of North Vancouver are giving Capilano University students easier access to advanced voting before the Nov. 15 municipal election.
City of North Vancouver council voted last Monday to open an advanced polling station at the Capilano Students' Union library lounge, Thursday Nov. 6 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mayor Darrell Mussatto brought the motion to council at the request of the Capilano Students' Union president Brittany Barnes.
The CS U is also taking a step further and organizing roundtable discussions for students to discuss municipal issues that affect them, namely transit and housing. The CS U is also planning to host two all-candidates meetings on campus.
The simultaneous city and district meetings take place Tuesday Nov. 4 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. with city candidates meetings in the library lounge and district candidates in the adjacent First Nations gathering space.
"All of this will lead up to them not just voting but making an informed vote on the sixth," Barnes said.
Barnes' lobbying won unanimous support and praise from city council members.
The trend of slipping youth engagement and turnout is troubling, Coun. Pam Bookham said, before throwing her support behind the motion. "I know as soon as I was of age to vote, I voted and felt very proud to be able to do so. That doesn't seem to be the case and we're very concerned about the lack of political engagement by young voters. This is a wonderful initiative," she said.
But the blame shouldn't fall with the disengaged youth, argued Coun. Craig Keating, paraphrasing a lesson he picked up from a recent lecture by one of President Barack Obama's campaign managers. "The most important thing he said is you have to go where people are if you want politics to work. I don't think youth is broken because they don't engage in politics. I think politics is broken because we don't find out where they are and we need to do a better job. Your encouragement on this is fantastic," he said to Barnes.
