A few weeks ago some University of Guelph students engaged in pseudo-protest/public action that they called a vote mob. As far as I can tell their action involved them standing across from a Harper/Conservative event and indicating that they, as youth, planned on voting in this election.
Since this time the 'idea' has spread across the country and other university groups have tried to engage in similar behaviours. A few days ago CBC reported on 'similar' activities that had taken place throughout the Maritimes. Then just today I saw that MUNSU has posted a video of their attempted 'vote mob.'
Since first hearing about the concept I have been a little unclear about exactly what these actions were hoping to achieve. Now, as the idea travels further and further from the originators, the connection to a goal related to voting seems increasingly unclear. For instance, what is the MUNSU thing supposed to do? If anything I suspect that a video that shows a 'vote mob' of about 30 (if that) in an otherwise empty university campus might actually confirm that youth really aren't that engaged in voting. One would think that if students were engaged in voting and the whole 'vote mob' idea Atlantic Canada's largest university could pull enough attendees to at least fill a regular classroom.
So as much as flash mobs social networking based protesting are all the rage right now I think that the Canadian university student community might actually be better off if they just forgot about the whole 'vote mob' thing for the time being, or at least until they can figure what it means or how to actually get mass participation (and this participation problem may be tied to the first problem). As it stands right now, I can't help but feel a little embarrassed for the members of these vote mobs.
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4 comments:
I suspect that the "vote mobsters" are leftists. If so, that means they would have very little ability to see ahead or plan for the future. Therefore, the interesting test, from the poli sci perspective, would be to find out how many of them could even produce current and valid voting credentials. I would expect the number to be small.
Given that most people just need something like a driver's license to vote I suspect that most people, leftists or not, would be able to provide the documents required for voting.
The phrase "current and valid voting credentials" means a voter registration document and governmentally issued photo ID if and where such might be required in as much as I am not intimately acquainted with voting requisites at the various jurisdictions of franchise throughout the length and bredth of Her Majesty's realm.
You do seem acquainted with somewhat incoherent/incomplete sentences.
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