Reykjavík Grapevine - 26.09.2014, Blaðsíða 16

16
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2014
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Icelandic Tourist Board.
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Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, ljósmynd/Photo: E.S.P.TV. Erró, Two Faces, 1985.
Before this May’s elections, the City of
Reykjavík commissioned a group to col-
late and examine voter data. Headed by
Páll Hilmarsson and Hildur Lilliendahl,
they set out to find out who voted, how
old they were and from which district
they came. This is the first time that the
city, or any other Icelandic municipality
for that matter, has performed such a de-
tailed analysis.
The election had an abysmally low
voter turnout, with only 62.8% of regis-
tered voters casting their ballot, making
it the lowest turnout since since 1928,
when Iceland was still a Danish colony.
What the group found, however, was that
only 51.3% of 18-to-40-year-olds voted,
compared to 72% of those 41 years and
older.
Achieving the impossible
Páll says that people had worried that
such a project would be too complicated
and costly, but that was not their expe-
rience. “It’s not rocket science,” he says,
“it just requires some work. We estimate
that the total cost was around half a mil-
lion ISK, which is a drop in the ocean
compared to the total cost of the elec-
tion.”
Once the votes had been counted, the
ten-man team collected the social securi-
ty numbers of those who voted, and with
those they determined gender, age and
residence. They then compared that data
with a list of eligible voters to get a clear
picture of which groups had and hadn’t
cast their vote. The majority of the work
took place over the course of two days,
and the results were presented to the City
Council’s Executive Board on August 14.
To ensure voter anonymity, original data
was deleted once the analysis was com-
plete.
The group, which has overseen the
elections the last few years, has long
dreamt about conducting this kind of
detailed study, as it is in their opinion
important for a democratic society. “It’s
vital to know what groups are voting and
who is being left behind,” Páll says.
Grim results
Páll had expected that younger people
were voting less, but he was astounded by
just how great the generational gap was.
“The eighteen-year-olds, first-time vot-
ers, had a 51.2% turnout, which was well
below the average,” he says, “but what’s
striking is that our data shows that only
39% of the nineteen-year-olds, who were
able to vote in the 2013 parliamentary
elections, voted now. That’s a massive
difference.”
He deeply regrets that the 2010 elec-
tion wasn’t documented in the same
manner, when comedian Jón Gnarr led
The Best Party to power. “Voter turn-
out was better, at 73.5%,” he says, “and
a largely apolitical mayor was elected.
If we had that data available, we could
definitively say whether or not young
people have since lost interest in politics.”
In addition to the low youth partici-
pation in the elections, the study found a
number of other statistically significant
results. Women, for instance, were found
to be more active voters than men until
the age of 75. People living in Breiðholt
and Álftanes also voted a lot less than
those in older and more established
neighbourhoods such as Vesturbær and
Hlíðar.
Alienated voters
These results did not come as a surprise
to Dr. Stefanía Óskarsdóttir, a senior
lecturer at the University of Iceland’s
department of political science. She says
that voter turnout has been steadily di-
minishing in the last few decades. “The
party platforms may be too similar for
young voters,” she says, “and people
today are less interested in joining po-
litical parties. The ruling powers used
to be able to give preferential treatment
to their voters and party members, but
everything has gotten more professional
lately so they can’t get away with that any
more, which in turn makes them lose
some of their appeal.”
She adds that the parties aren’t focus-
ing on issues that matter to young people,
a sentiment echoed by Ingvar Smári
Birgisson, chair of Heimdallur, the youth
wing of the Reykjavík Independence Par-
ty. “The fight has been to get more wom-
en involved in politics," he says. "Now
we need to do the same for young people
and get more candidates elected that are
younger than 35.”
Meanwhile Halla Gunnarsdóttir,
chair of Hallveig, youth wing of the Reyk-
javík Social Democratic Alliance, holds
both the youth movements and politi-
cal parties accountable for not engaging
properly with young people. “We need
to get them more involved,” she says,
“because what happens in City Council
affects their lives, such as with public
transport and the rental market. We, the
young people, need to have our voices
and concerns heard by those in power.”
It is an age-honoured tradition to blame young people for
things that are wrong in society—its moral degradation is
invariably due to the youth’s laziness, lack of education,
and perverse taste. Although youngsters, much like im-
migrants and the fair people of Florida, are often used
as scapegoats, they were indeed at fault for the low voter
turnout in the latest municipal elections.
Bloody
Young People
Don’t Vote!
No, seriously folks,
we have the data
to prove it
Words by Tómas Gabríel Benjamin
Politics | Democracy
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00% Á
rbæ
jarskóli
Á
rbæ
r
H
agaskóli
Vesturbæ
r
Ingunnarskóli
G
rafarholt
Klébergsskóli
Kjalarnes
Laugardalshöll
Laugardalur
Væ
ttarskóli Borgir
G
rafarvogur
Voter Turnout by Location
90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
18-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80+
Voter Turnout by Age
Male
Female
Total