THORNHILL—All party leaders are urging voters — especially young voters — to turn out in droves to cast a ballot on May 2. But only one party appears to have an interest in driving down the participation of 18-to-24-year-olds in this campaign, says an expert on youth voting patterns. And now the Conservative Party is facing an allegation of election tampering after trying to have 700 votes cast by students earlier this week at the University of Guelph declared null and void.

Students from the University of Guelph attend a rally in support of voting before the start of a campaign event for Conservative leader Stephen Harper in Guelph, in this file photo from April 4, 2011. ( CHRIS WATTIE / REUTERS )

The Tories say that the advance voting station — an initiative specifically designed to increase young voters’ participation in this campaign — was not authorized by Elections Canada and was littered with opposition party campaign material. The Liberals say officials with Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke illegally filmed voters and then tried to snatch away the ballot box, a great big election no-no. “Our concern is simply that the rules for advance polling, that all the rules of the election be respected and that is our sole concern,” said Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. Elections Canada said in a statement that the on-campus polling station, where normally strict voting rules are more relaxed, was the work of a “well-intentioned returning officer” who organized a sanctioned but not pre-authorized vote.

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They won’t be holding anymore advanced balloting at the university in the future, but all of the votes cast will be considered valid. In a riding where the Tories lost to the Liberals by just 1,792 votes in the 2008 election, those 700 votes matter. In the dozens of other ridings across the country where the vote count will be equally tight, experts say the Tory campaign is trying to drive down the participation of those who can be expected to vote for other parties. That effort has been backed up by Harper’s stump speech, which complains about an unnecessary election that nobody wants. “When you say something like that, the people who are core committed voters will still, of course, turn out but people who are on the fence are more likely to stay home,” said Paul Howe, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick. “We know from the numbers that older people are much more the committed voters and younger people are less committed, and so clearly it works to the Conservatives’ advantage because their support is concentrated among older people.”

The NDP is a traditional favourite of young voters, while the Liberals are specifically targeting youth with a post-secondary education subsidy they’ve made a centrepiece of their platform. The Bloc Québécois as well launched a section of their platform specifically targeting the young on Friday. “I have been saying, ‘Let’s get more students involved, let’s not suppress the vote and let’s make respect for democracy a central part of what we expect from a prime minister,” Ignatieff said Friday at a campaign stop in Ottawa.

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NDP Leader Jack Layton called for an investigation into Tory “intimidation and harassment.” “We must encourage youth to vote, not prevent them from voting,” he said in Montreal. Howe, an expert on youth voting patterns, noted that just 37.4 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 24 participated in 2008, and there is a specific risk that those same eligible young voters will miss their chance this time around. The university school year is ending just as politicians head into the home stretch of the campaign. “That’s definitely going to hurt,” Howe said. The newest phenomenon in the 41st general election is the so-called Vote Mob — flocks of students dressed in red and white, sometimes draped literally in the Canadian flag — who show up at campaign events with the express purpose of boosting voter turnout, specifically among youth. The Tories initially considered members of this group hostile and turned away several who attempted to attend Harper’s rallies. But after the lack of public access to Conservative events became one of the central issues of the campaign in Week 2, party officials admitted a dozen members of a Vote Mob into a rally in Hamilton. They listened attentively and later met privately with Harper, an encounter the Conservative leader’s press secretary promptly noted on Twitter. “We are all concerned about the gradual fall we’re seeing in voting rates,” Harper said Friday. “Sometimes I know for ordinary people it’s off-putting but let’s remember that at its heart we have the right (to vote) in this country that our ancestors fought for … People around the world continue to fight for that right. So I encourage everyone to consider it importantly and to exercise it.” With files from Richard J. Brennan and Joanna Smith

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