So what's my one vote going to do?
Well here’s the thing, in Credit Union elections, people don’t vote. In the last provincial election 57% of eligible voters turned out…only slightly more than half. In the last federal election, 68.5% of eligible voters turned out. In the last Servus election, guess how many voted?
Go ahead, guess. I’ll wait.
Did you guess 20%? Nope. 5%? Nope. In the last general board election for Servus only 0.7% showed up to vote. 2855 members of a possible 390,000 exercised their democratic rights. If you voted in the provincial election (and you did right?), your vote would have counted for 0.0001% of votes cast. In the Servus election: 0.04%. What’s your vote worth? About 520 times what it was worth in the provincial election!
But maybe percentages and multipliers aren’t your thing. Here’s a simple way to look at it: the difference between 1st and 8th? Only 692 votes.
Or how about this one: the four candidates with the most votes were elected in the last election. And incumbent wasn’t elected because he came 5th. So how many votes were there between 4th (a successful candidate) and 5th?
18.
Yup, just 18 votes separated 4th and 5th. When you and 18 of your friends can influence who is one the board and who isn’t, your one vote counts for a great deal.
And here’s where you can help. My goal for the next Servus election is a 1% turnout. Yup, only 1%. That’s 3,900 members. Slightly more than a 1000 more people than voted last year. And I think we can do it.
But then I’m preaching to the converted. You’re here. You’ve already shown you care about the Servus board elections. And hopefully you’re a little more educated about why it is so important that you participate.
All I ask of you is two simple things:
- That you vote in the next election.
- That you invite a friend who is a Servus member read these posts, understand how important their role is, and then remind them to vote when the time comes. It’s simple. Let’s get out and vote people!
This article is part of a series. You can read the whole series at http://twentyfivetwenty.ca.
