Drawn to the Polls? Representations of Canadian Voters in Editorial Cartoons

Abstract

This study examines representations of Canadian voters in the editorial cartoons printed by Canada’s national newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, during the 2004, 2006, and 2008 federal election campaigns. The authors argue that a consistent narrative is presented in the cartoons, a story of “citizens without democracy.” Despite widespread disinterest in elections amongst the Canadian public, evidenced by a steady decline in voter turnout, editorial cartoonists did not depict voting-age citizens as apathetic non-participants. Instead, the cartoonists situated voters as innocent bystanders to, or cynical observers of, the self-interested antics of political parties, news media, and pollsters. As such, these “editorials in pictures” blamed politicians and governments, not voters, for the failures of electoral democracy in Canada.