Site MenuYouth Engagement and Mobilization in the 2010 Toronto Municipal Election
5. Interview Findings
Representatives from 22 different organizations involved in youth mobilization participated in the interview process. Footnote 24 This section begins by providing a profile of the organizations represented and then presents the findings from the interviews.
Along with collecting feedback from the participants, the interviewer asked them to describe the planning and execution of their mobilization work during the election. The interview findings are presented as they relate to six topics: Toronto Elections' youth outreach network; non-partisanship; election information and resources; regional and demographic patterns; and the characteristics of successful organizations during the election.
5.1 Organizations and Interview Participants
Twelve of the 22 organizations have youth-specific mandates or represent typically young communities (e.g. student unions). The other 10 organizations have broader mandates, but were involved in youth mobilization during the election. Figure 2 shows the distribution of different organizations based on their mandates. Non-profit organizations with general mandates are distinguished from those that focus either on electoral engagement or on specific geographic communities.
Figure 2: Interview participants by organization type
Text description of Figure 2 is available on a separate page.
The participants also represent organizations from across Toronto, as summarized in Figure 3. Six of the organizations are located in Central Toronto, eight are located in amalgamated suburbs, and another eight have city-wide or provincial mandates.
Figure 3: Interview participants by organization location
Text description of Figure 3 is available on a separate page.
The organizations' activities outside of the 2010 municipal election are also varied. Of the 22 organizations represented, only eight had previously been directly involved in electoral mobilization. As shown in Figure 4, seven of the organizations are involved in lobbying and policy advocacy, whereas a third provide civic education programming to their communities.
5.2 Toronto Elections' Youth Outreach Initiative
The response to Toronto Elections' youth outreach initiative and the creation of a network of partner organizations was overwhelmingly positive. Participants were particularly enthusiastic about connecting with other organizations at the meetings held by Toronto Elections. "I am so grateful," said one participant. "Because of that [meeting of partner networks], I am doing so many things that I am passionate about, and they're coming to fruition because of that."
In terms of improvements, participants generally said that Toronto Elections could have been more proactive. The two most common recommendations are described below: approaching partners earlier in the year and developing a more extensive mobilization campaign.
Figure 4: Organizational activities outside of the 2010 Toronto municipal election
Text description of Figure 4 is available on a separate page.
Time and Planning Constraints
Several participants complained that Toronto Elections approached them too late in the year. Of the 21 participants from the youth partner network, five specifically identified this as an area for improvement. Some organizations had either already made their plans before meeting with Toronto Elections, while others did not have enough time to develop plans between the first meeting on July 22, 2010, and the election. "[Toronto Elections] needs to articulate what they're going to do earlier on in the process," said one participant.
This feedback came from each type of organization. "Get into the universities early," said one university representative. "Sometimes it's hard to figure out who the right person to speak with is, but there will be a person who is keen to develop that programming. It's just a question of finding them." Similarly, student union and community organization representatives identified spring or early summer (approximately six months before the election) as a better time to start planning for a fall election.
Mobilization Activity and Capacity
When asked to suggest improvements, 10 of the 22 participants said that election agencies should be more involved in directly contacting and mobilizing youth.
Participants' intuitions in this area often echoed the existing research around GOTV and personal contact. "I felt the one-on-ones I had with people were really the strongest," said one student union representative. "They actually come back to you and say 'I voted.'" Another participant said that the Toronto Elections youth campaign relied too heavily on print media: "A flyer? That's not really enough. Especially when you're dealing with youth, that's not enough to make a youth go out and fill out a ballot."
Five participants emphasized the need for more outreach by Toronto Elections through social media, and for adopting a flexible approach to these media. "These things have to be done on the fly, it has to be responsive," said one participant. "Tomorrow there could be another version of Twitter or Facebook, and you need to embrace that."
Several participants also suggested that the city engage in capacity-building for youth mobilization initiatives. One participant recommended that Toronto Elections "actually send out representatives to different schools, to different organizations, to coach the youth workers themselves – on different approaches, different methods, different strategies to talk to youth about elections." Another proposed that Toronto Elections create "a youth action team that might be able to go around the city and deliver workshops for young people, by young people."
5.3 Non-partisanship Policies
Although none of the organizations selected for interview had partisan affiliations, five participants expressed concerns with the non-partisanship policies of the City of Toronto and other levels of government.
Relationships with Government and Funders
Most of the organizations represented in our sample, as well as most of the organizations in Toronto Elections' partner network, rely to some extent on government funding for their operations. Many of them also receive funding from foundations and organizations that are non-partisan and hold charitable status. Three interview participants explicitly identified these relationships, and the perceptions of partisanship surrounding election mobilization, as an obstacle to their work during the 2010 municipal election.
One participant described an incident from the 2006 municipal election, where a candidate filed a formal complaint against a local non-profit organization. Although the organization was cleared of any wrongdoing, they were forced to devote a significant amount of resources to dealing with the complaint. The participant reported hearing similar concerns expressed by other local organizations, which make them reluctant to engage in elections: "There's this culture of fear that has been created around election time, where organizations say 'You know what? It's not even worth it for us. We don't want to engage our participants on any level at all when it comes to elections.'"
Two other participants described a non-partisan organization whose application for funding was rejected by a federal ministry, as their focus on visible minority voters was considered overly political. "Because they're trying to get a certain ethnic group – a certain population – to vote," one participant said, "the understanding [within the government] is 'If [that population does] vote, they're not going to vote for us, so why should we support this group?' There's that element. And you might find that controversial ... but definitely that's an issue."
These concerns can be summarized as two different challenges. The first is that some non-political organizations who engage in youth mobilization believe their mandates are perceived as implicitly political. As one participant put it, "It's really interesting: when you say that 'I want to support youth,' you become partisan, because the right automatically assumes that you are now assisting the left."
The second challenge is a lack of clarity around non-partisanship policies and regulations. Participants received mixed signals about what activities were considered non-partisan depending on which officials they spoke with. As one respondent put it, "I think there needs to be more of a dialogue with public funders – with the municipal, provincial, federal level – [and] the organizations they fund, to let them know this is what is allowed and this is what isn't allowed. There's a lot of miscommunication."
These concerns also reveal a blind spot in this analysis: by virtue of how the interview sample was selected, it only includes organizations that were active during the election. There is no way to estimate how many other organizations avoided election mobilization altogether because of similar concerns involving partisanship and funding. The topic warrants further attention.
City Non-partisanship Policies
Several participants described Toronto Elections' non-partisanship policy as limiting their effectiveness at youth mobilization. One repeated criticism was that Toronto Elections staff would not attend events where candidates were present. As one participant explained, "because [Toronto Elections] has to be so, so non-partisan, they had a policy about not coming to events where there were going to be any candidates. And I feel that's very limiting. ... For events where all of the candidates are being invited and the event itself is non-partisan, I'm not sure why the city can't have a presence."
Another participant expressed frustration with the support Toronto Elections could provide for organizers trying to mobilize youth. When the participant asked for help planning issue-specific youth mobilization activities, city officials responded that providing that advice fell outside of their mandate. "Sometimes I feel that limits [Toronto Elections] in the way they can actually help organizations," said a participant. "They've done well in their very neutral stance, but they can do a lot more in aggressively trying to help people connect to issues and connect to things."
Practical concerns with non-partisanship extend beyond Toronto Elections. Another participant who organized several election events and debates had difficulty securing space from the Toronto District School Board. Although the board provides free space to non-profit organizations through the Priority Schools Initiative, applications to use this space for youth workshops and debates were rejected because these activities were election-related.
5.4 Election Information and Resources
Providing information to voters is a central part of Toronto Elections' mandate. During the 2010 municipal election, the city ran a traditional media campaign, maintained a social media presence, distributed print materials and provided information on the city's Web site. Along with these resources, flyers, posters and other promotional materials were also created specifically for the Toronto Elections youth outreach campaign.
On the whole, interview participants responded positively to these resources: of the 22 participants, 16 reported using the city's print materials in their work. Participants also gave specific feedback on election information that was needed for their work. The interview questions did not explicitly solicit this feedback, which suggests that respondents were identifying a significant gap in the election resources currently available.
Candidate and Platform Information
The single most-requested resource during the interviews was more information about candidates and their platforms. Specifically, participants identified a need for resources that present and compare candidates and their platforms in a consistent manner. Footnote 25
Participants from community and student organizations identified this as a barrier to their work. Two representatives from student unions explained that students would frequently ask about where candidates stood on specific issues, and the representatives were unable to provide a response or direct them elsewhere. Other participants identified this as a general shortcoming of the Toronto Elections Web site. As one participant put it, "You can find out who's registered to run in each ward and for mayor, but it's just a name and it doesn't mean anything to anybody."
Perhaps the most telling were the three organizations that developed candidate information sheets or report cards of their own. This suggests that information about candidates and their platforms is an appreciable need for organizations seeking to mobilize youth.
Accessing Candidate Contact Information
A lack of accessible information about candidates was also an obstacle for some organizations. The Toronto Elections Web site does not consistently provide contact information for candidates. Because of this, participants had to travel to city offices and pay for photocopies of candidate lists in order to organize election debates.
"We're in an age where there's really no excuse for not having this stuff on the Internet," said one participant who was involved in organizing debates. "If you don't have an e-mail address, you probably shouldn't be running for city councillor. Get an e-mail address, put it on-line and make sure you're accessible. That's part of the democratic process."
Adaptation of Election Resources
During the interviews, 11 of the 22 of the participants reported adapting resources from Toronto Elections. The most common approach was for participants to copy information from the city's Web site, revise it for their target community and then integrate it into their organization's outreach materials. This behaviour pattern was remarkably common and consistent, and its implications are discussed in the Recommendations section of this report. One participant aptly summarized the consensus from the interviews: "Resources are great, but you have to take these resources and make them your own."
5.5 Regional and Demographic Patterns
As in the case of survey respondents, several interview findings pertain to specific regions or demographic groups. In particular, suburban residents, immigrants, and students in residence faced unique accessibility issues during the election.
Polling Station Opening Hours
Youth in the amalgamated suburbs face different barriers to voting than those living in the city centre. Participants from the colleges and universities with suburban campuses consistently identified commuter culture as a general barrier to engagement, as students were often less engaged in campus activities.
Commuter culture was also a challenge for community organizations working in the suburbs. Three participants explicitly identified the opening hours of polling stations as a barrier to participation. Polling stations in Toronto were open from 10:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. on election day, which leaves only a narrow window in the evening for commuters with traditional schedules to vote. One participant identified this as the "number-one complaint" from residents in their community.
Citizenship and Immigrant Communities
Two participants identified a separate category of challenges surrounding citizenship and immigration. These participants work with communities that have large immigrant populations. In the course of their election outreach, one participant discovered that the majority of youth their organization was targeting had immigrated to Canada as young children, but never applied for citizenship. The interaction between immigration issues and youth engagement is beyond the scope of this report, but it certainly warrants further attention.
Students in Campus Residences
During the 2010 municipal election, the City Clerk's Office cooperated with several post-secondary institutions and student unions to provide letters of attestation for students living in campus residences, as many lack any other proof of address. Footnote 26 All of the student union and administration representatives involved in this program responded positively to it. Two student union representatives we interviewed also identified the distribution of these letters as an opportunity for personal contact with students, although in one case they were prevented from doing so because of a university policy preventing canvassing in residences. The relationship between post-secondary institutions' policies and campus mobilization warrants further attention from stakeholders.
5.6 Characteristics of Successful Organizations
As described in the Youth Mobilization Assessment section, the size and scope of organizations' mobilization activity varied considerably. The extent to which organizations met their own goals for voter mobilization also varied significantly.
Based on the survey, mobilization, and interview data collected, we identified three highly successful organizations participating in this research. In this case, we defined successful organizations as those that were generally able to meet their own goals and that were also described as having the largest impact by other interview participants. We identified similarities in the mobilization plans and activities of these organizations, which may be linked to their success.
Starting Early
The three organizations we identified started planning early, from four months to a full year before the election. Almost all of their mobilization activities still took place in September and October, but they developed specific plans well in advance of implementing them. For example, one organization was forced to postpone their activities with high school students until after the summer vacation. Given that the organization started their planning in March, they were able to cope with a three-month delay.
Leveraging Existing Relationships
All three organizations collaborated with other groups, which was representative of the sample as a whole. However, most of these collaborations appear to have originated from personal connections. All of the participants relied primarily on existing connections within their communities, rather than approaching new partners. Two of these three organizations also secured funding (albeit in limited amounts) for their election work, again through existing relationships. When asked to recommend best practices, one of the participants aptly summarized a pattern: "Start early and find as many allies as you possibly can."
Another interview participant echoed this comment, emphasizing the value of partnerships to bypass obstacles and reach new communities. "Collaborate as much as possible, because the more you collaborate, the less work you have to do yourself," said the participant. "If you don't really know the community [you are trying to reach], don't try to get to know the community. Just go in and allow the people who actually know the community to do that part of the work. Collaborate with them."
Defining Narrow Strategies
All three organizations also developed relatively "narrow" strategies prior to the election, in terms of choosing to restrict the scope of their goals and activities. Each organization started by identifying limited goals for the election, such as increasing participation in a specific neighbourhood or raising awareness around a specific issue. The organizations then developed plans specifically to meet these goals and excluded other activities from their plans. This stands in contrast to other participants who described more complex and original plans for the election, many of which did not come to fruition.
Return to source of Footnote 24 Two of the participants represented different community organizations that worked together for the 2010 municipal election as part of the Malvern Votes campaign.
Return to source of Footnote 25 This finding is consistent with Apathy is Boring's internal Web analytics. For the 2008 federal election, Apathy is Boring provided information about civic engagement, how to vote, and platform summaries for all of the political parties. During the month prior to the election, platform summaries were by far the most popular form of content, accounting for 43.7% of all pages viewed on the Web site. Similarly, of youth who opened an election-day e-mail with links to this content, the majority (51.1%) navigated to the party platforms, compared with much smaller proportions who chose general election information (12.2%) or information about how to vote (6.3%).
Return to source of Footnote 26 See Appendix E for a sample letter of attestation.