open Secondary menu

Online Survey of Associations


INTRODUCTION

Background and Objectives

Elections Canada is a non-partisan, independent agency, with a mandate to ensure that Canadians have open and impartial election and referendum processes in which to exercise their choices. These responsibilities include informing citizens about the electoral process, and ensuring that it is accessible for all electors.

As part of the exercise of this mandate, Elections Canada engages in outreach activities among various associations across Canada, particularly those representing groups of Canadians that have historically tended to vote in lower numbers than the general population, or that are more likely to experience difficulties in exercising their voting rights. These outreach efforts include the Community Relations Officer Program, which Elections Canada expanded during the recently- completed 40th general election. Community Relations Officers are deployed in the field to engage specific groups of voters, liaise with their organizations and provide them with election materials, as well as organizing information sessions and kiosks.

As part of its evaluation of the 40th general election, Elections Canada wanted to assess its outreach activities for associations representing youth groups and student associations, Aboriginal associations, ethnocultural associations, and associations for persons with disabilities to which Elections Canada provided any kind of information materials. The main objective of the study was to gather feedback on the information and services provided by Elections Canada in order to establish a baseline for these services, and to assist in identifying areas for improvement for future electoral events.

Specific objectives of the study include:

  • profiling the associations in terms of size and geographic scope,
  • determining the extent to which associations receive and request information from Elections Canada and disseminate this information to their members,
  • assessing satisfaction with the process of ordering materials from Elections Canada,
  • assessing the extent to which association members encountered problems voting in the recent general election, particularly in terms of problems related to the new identification requirements,
  • assessing the perceived effectiveness of Elections Canada's products and services,
  • assessing usage of e-bulletins, and
  • assessing usage of, and satisfaction with, the Community Relations Officer Program.

The survey reported was designed as an online census of all associations to which Elections Canada provided information materials during the 40th general election. A total of 119 online interviews were conducted between November 27 and December 18, 2008. The margin of error for the total responding group of 119 associations is +/- 8.4 percentage points, 19 times in 20. Margins of error are higher for subsamples. A detailed methodology is provided at the end of the report. The English and French questionnaires are shown in the Appendix.

This report begins with a summary of key findings and conclusions, followed by a detailed analysis of the survey data. (Where appropriate, subgroup differences are highlighted; however, given the small total sample size, subgroups were generally too small to reliably analyze.)

Unless otherwise noted, all results are expressed as a percentage.