As Ingrid Rice’s cartoon captures it, voter apathy is the final piece in the Harper majority puzzle. But what I’ve seen and read on 2.0 social media is that voters ARE engaged, we know what’s at stake, and if early voting is any indication, we will turn out to vote.

Now, the real question for me and others has been why is it that if I can file my taxes online, do my banking online, pay my bills online, register for everything from courses to retailers online, I cannot vote online?

Dave Reynold’s blogs that according to Stats Canada, 98% of 16-24 year olds have access to the internet. It seems logical then that one good way to combat voter apathy at least for the youth demographic of voters is to provide a 21st century option to the paper and mini pencil method of pre-21st century tools.

And contrary to popular belief, Elections Canada is on board with this. In fact, a 2009 CBC report shows that EC believes online voting would be a very good strategy to counter low turn-out for all sorts of reasons possibly including voter apathy.

If parties are willing to take advantage of social media and online networking to get their message out to us, it seems well past time that they aggressive pursue secure online voting protocols for federal elections so we can get our message to them.