Elections Canada will release a national survey to find ways to encourage young Canadians to vote.

In the 2008 federal election only 37 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 voted. Young voter turnout has been decreasing since the 1960s.

The survey will be given to 2,500 people aged 18 to 34 who are unemployed, aboriginal, disabled, and live in rural areas or whose first languages are neither English nor French. 

This survey is a part of Elections Canada trying to better understand the decline in the number of young Canadian voters.

Elections Canada seeks to identify what it calls “possible interveners” – activists, social media sites and musicians that Canadian youth are following and through them deliver the message to the young Canadians.

In 2008 only 58.8 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots, a record low due to the drop-off in youth participation.