How do we get more people to vote?

[Markster]

D'Amato: Maybe it’s time to stop worrying about low voter turnout

Can we all please stop agonizing over the low election turnout?

Only three out of every 10 eligible voters in Waterloo Region actually voted, according to unofficial poll results. That's about the same as in the last municipal elections, in 2010.

[...]

People will vote when there's an important issue in front of them — and when they think they know enough about that issue to weigh in on it.

Otherwise, most of them won't.
You want proof? Look at Toronto, which had record-high turnout on Monday, at 60.4 per cent. In 2010, turnout in Canada's biggest city also hit a record high at 53 per cent. Previously, it had languished at around 30 per cent.
The reason can be summed up in three little words: The Ford brothers.

[...]

Here in Waterloo Region, we don't have such stark problems. It's not as if the suburbs of Kitchener had a champion in one mayoral candidate, while the downtown favoured another.

Yes, the light rail transit project has polarized us, but most voters realized it's too late now to cancel it.