Two more months.
That's how much longer we have to wait to find out who the winners and losers are in the federal election. That's also two more months of campaign signs, constant advertising and the news media filling the airwaves, websites and newspaper pages, obsessing over candidates and issues.
That's also just two months for voters to learn about their candidates and their stances on the various issues before going to the polls on
Oct. 19 and making their choice on a ballot.
Last year, the Citizen devoted the summer and fall to a voter engagement campaign to encourage higher turnout at the polls for the municipal election. We partnered with CKPG to commission a mayoral poll. The Citizen and CKPG, along with UNBC, hosted a mayoral debate. We also wrote numerous stories and editorials for newspaper and online readers on the municipal election, including the basics on how and where to vote.
Happily, voter turnout increased by five per cent from the 2011 election.
With that in mind, we're back for another go-around of encouraging, to the point of harassing, adult residents to make sure they fulfill their obligation to vote in favour of the best candidate on the ballot to represent their riding in Ottawa.
We'll be duplicating many of the same efforts we did last year over the next two months and we'll announce more on those initiatives once we have all the details in place.
The Citizen's political affairs reporter Charelle Evelyn is already hard at work on a series of election stories. Her series debuts today with a profile of the two area ridings. In the coming weeks, she'll be taking a closer look at each of the candidates and the federal issues of importance in central and northern B.C.
In September, the Citizen's 2015 election page will appear on our website. Besides featuring Evelyn's work, it will contain practical information regarding how to contact Elections Canada, who is eligible to vote, where to vote, when to vote, the identification needed to vote and so on. The webpage will also be home to other election coverage and commentary on the campaign, providing area residents with a one-stop location for everything they'll need to know before going out to vote.
As well, the Election 2015 webpage will feature numerous photographs of local residents holding up signs explaining what is important to them in this election, under the hashtag #myvotematters. We tried this on a small scale for last year's municipal election but we're pushing it much harder this time around.
Local resident Marnie Hamagami was so impressed with the Citizen's voter engagement efforts last year that she wanted to be actively involved this year. As a result, she's approaching area residents from all walks of life, asking them to fill out the #myvotematters sign with a few words on why this election is important and then to pose for a photograph with their sign. We'll feature at least one new picture every day, both online and in the newspaper, and we'll also broadcast the pictures to our followers on Facebook and Twitter.
We'll also post a downloadable version of the #myvotematters sign so you can fill it out yourself, get your picture taken with it and send it off to us, as well as share it with your friends, family and contacts through social media.
The folks who see Marnie over the next couple of weeks and take part in the #myvotematters campaign early will get a sneak preview of our new masthead, The Citizen banner that identifies us each day at the top of our front page and on our website. Besides offering a fresh, modern look, it also celebrates our 100 years in business in Prince George, leading into our centennial anniversary in February. We'll unveil it to our online and newspaper readers for the first time on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
We look forward to sharing our reporting on the 2015 election with you and we look forward to hearing from you why #yourvotematters.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
