N.Bs voter turnout rises on NDPs strength

The strength of the NDP is being credited to the rise of New Brunswick's voter turnout in Monday' election.

Elections Canada's preliminary statistics show New Brunswick's voter turnout level jumped to 66.1 per cent up from 62.9 per cent in 2008.

New Brunswick's share of registered voters who cast ballots in Monday's election is the third highest in Canada, behind only Prince Edward Island and the Yukon.

Don Desserud, a political scientist with the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, said the increase in voter turnout could be attributed to the risein support for the NDP.

"The new support for the NDP, at least in New Brunswick, was interesting and significant," Desserud said.

The only NDP candidate that New Brunswick voters sent to Ottawa is Acadie-Bathurst's Yvon Godin, who has held the riding since 1997.

The Conservatives won 43.9 per cent of the popular vote on Monday and elected eight candidates.

The NDP won 29.8 per cent of the popular vote and the Liberals finished third with 22.6 per cent of the vote. Only Liberal Dominic LeBlanc was elected in New Brunswick.

The Liberals finished in third place in every riding except Beausejour, Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe and Madawaska-Restigouche.

Canada's voter turnout rate rose slightly to 61.4 per cent, according to Elections Canada's preliminary estimates.

There were 14.7 million Canadians who elected a Conservative majority government on Monday night, pushing the preliminary voter turnout to 61.4 per cent up from 59.1 per cent in 2008.

All the figures were based on reports from 71,486 of 71,513 polls across Canada. The total number of registered electors did not, however, include anyone who only registered on election day itself.

John Enright, an Elections Canada official, said the agency's personnel will spend the next few days checking the preliminary voter turnouts against the number of voters who registered at the polls.

"Sometimes the numbers change, they don't usually change a great deal. But it could change a little bit between now and the next two or three days," Enright said.

Youth vote to be studied

During the election, many young Canadians participated in vote mobs that were intended to show that they were going to vote on May 2.

Elections Canada said it doesn't break down election results into demographic groups so those results must be compiled by academics.

Paul Howe, a University of New Brunswick political scientist, compiled similar statistics in his 2010 book Citizens Adrift: The democratic disengagement of young Canadians.

He found that the 18 to 24 age group is consistently the demographic with the smallest voter turnout.

In 2008, only 37.4 per cent of those young voters turned out to cast ballots compared to 68 per cent of 65 to 74 year olds.

In the 2006 election, 43.8 per cent of the youngest voters actually voted compared to 77.5 per cent of those people aged 65 to 74.

Howe alsofound someyoung voters are regularly notvoting.

In 1974, there were no Canadians aged 25 to 29 who did not vote in the three most recent elections -- two federaland oneprovincial.In 2004,11.1 per cent of the same age group didnot vote in the three most recent elections.