Ok, I admit that I actually watch American Idol. Well I have to since my wife insists. Now the main reason we watch it is that she is a music teacher and likes to keep current and since I have been a music teacher in one of my past lives I like to play judge disagreeing with the public and the judges. But I have noticed that over the past couple of years the public was consistently not voting for the most talented performer. This was confirmed this past week as the producers of American Idol chose as the mentor for the final nine performers, none other than Adam Lambert, runner up from last years contest. Last year we all knew Adam was clearly the most talented so they why did he loose? Well my guess is that you have to look who is voting. Now again this is a guess, but I would put my money on “Tweenie” Girls who make up the majority of the voters. That would explain why it’s been awhile since we have seen a female winner and why a clearly more talented female was voted off this past week. This could also explain why in the final seven there are five boys and only two girls. I would bet that if the ratio of voting boys to girls was more equal we would see a few more girls left in the competition. As well if the demographic of the voters was more evenly balanced we would see the most talented actually win rather than the cutest boy as we did last year.

Now what does that have to do with today’s politics you ask? Well we do vote for our politicians is the answer. Well at least some of us do. But do we always pick the best candidates? That is a very good question. How to pick the best candidates?

I believe we have the same flaw in our democracy that American Idol has, in that we have only a small segment of the population participating in democracy. Especially when you consider that less than 35% of eligible voters actually voted in the last provincial/civic election. I would also guess that the majority of those were over fifty. This means we have a very narrow segment of the population controlling who our politicians are and therefore our government. It also seems to me that this lowers the chances of picking the best candidates as well.

So now back to the question how to have a system that always chooses the best candidate? Well the short answer would be to have more people turn out to vote, but how to do that? Maybe its time to consider mandatory voting, like they have in Australia, Switzerland and other countries.

This would ensure that we have a broader demographic voting and help with making sure we select the best candidates to be our leaders.

The big question with that, is will our existing leaders even entertain the idea? I doubt it. They have such a good deal now why rock the boat. In Spruce Grove you just have to go down to the Pioneer Center and smooze with the folks down there the month before the election and poof you are an Alderman. Forget about going into the younger neighbourhoods to smooze as they are not home anyway. They are too busy working to pay their taxes.

Again this is an election year for your civic government. Will we collectively choose the best candidates? We can’t even guess until the voter turnout increases to include a broader demographic.