On vote suppression

Good catch by Chrystal in pointing out just how many eligible votes might have been lost to new identification requirements in 2008. But it's worth comparing that number to one of the main narratives following from the election.

For all the hand-wringing about decreased turnout as a sign of voter apathy, Chrystal's numbers would suggest that nearly two-thirds of the decrease from the 2006 election actually resulted from the voter ID requirements. Which means that the issue may have been less whether citizens cared enough to vote, and more the fact that every party in Parliament other than the NDP deliberately made it harder to do so.