Forecasting election results is hard. Predicting who will turn out to vote next week in the United States is not.

The rich are more likely to vote than the poor. The better educated are more likely to vote than the less educated. White people are more likely to vote than racialized Americans.

As a scholar who has studied trust and how it matters for years, I can say that generalized trust — an expectation of good will and benign intent of others — is also a powerful predictor of voter turnout.

Whomever they vote for, Americans who are trusting are more likely to have either cast their ballots already or will on election day than Americans who do not trust easily.

Trust inequality can explain disparity in voter turnout. My research shows that, regionally across the United States, trust is lower in the South, and Southerners are less likely to vote. I also show that those who feel they have less power in society are less able to trust. This can, at least partly, explain why the poor and racialized Americans are less likely to vote.

The promise of democracy in part rests on citizens being able to trust equally.

Post-election data

My study of elections relies largely on turnout data from post-election surveys. Two major ongoing surveys that document voter turnout in the U.S. are the American National Election Studies (ANES) and the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS).

Since 1948, the ANES has asked respondents after each presidential election whether they voted. The mission of the ANES data is to provide high-quality data to help researchers understand “why does America vote as it does on election day.”

The GSS has interviewed American citizens — annually from 1972 to 1993 and biannually since 1994 — to ask similarly whether they voted in presidential elections. See the turnout information from the 2016 presidential below:

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 61.4 per cent of the voting-age population reported voting in the 2016 presidential election. In comparison to this number, the graph above shows the ANES significantly overestimated voter turnout at 85 per cent.

That’s not unusual. Post-election surveys often overestimate voter turnout due to reasons that include social desirability response bias (the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favourably by others), recall errors (the gap grows as more time passes between the election and the survey interview) and biased non-response (people who do not vote are especially unlikely to participate in surveys).

Nonetheless, these post-election surveys are useful for studying, for example, how race, gender and socioeconomic class might shape voting behaviour, so I’ve included data from both surveys in my research.

Trusting Americans are more likely to vote

Previous research has also suggested that trust plays an important role in political participation. Voting is a typical form of political participation. That means we would expect voter turnout to be higher among Americans who trust than those who do not trust easily.

In many surveys, the widely used statement to measure overall trust is: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cannot be too careful in life?” This statement was part of both the the ANES and the GSS surveys.

My analysis of the data from both surveys shows that Americans who think “most people can be trusted” are much more likely to vote than those who think “cannot be too careful in life.” The pattern is also highly consistent when I separate the analysis on a yearly basis. Higher trust is associated with a higher turnout in every U.S. presidential election since 1948.

Taking into account race, gender, age, level of education and household income, as well as the year of the election, Americans who trust are about 70 per cent more likely to vote than those who do not trust, regardless of which survey we use (72 per cent from ANES; 70 per cent from GSS).

Trust impacts Republicans more than Democrats

But does trust affect Republican voters and Democrat voters differently?

To answer this question, I compare turnout gaps between “trusters” and “mistrusters” among Republican voters and Democrat voters.

The graph below shows that overall the voting gap between trusters and mistrusters is greater among those who vote Republican than those who vote Democrat. Specifically, based on the cumulative data from the ANES (1948-2016), the left side of the graph shows that while the voting gap between trusters and mistrusters is only about one percentage point (38 per cent versus 37 per cent) for Democratic voters, the gap is 13 percentage points for Republican voters (40 per cent versus 27 per cent).

The right side of the graph focuses on the 2016 election only using data from the 2018 GSS. It shows that while the voting gap between trusters and mistrusters was seven percentage points among Clinton voters, the gap was 12 percentage points among Trump voters.

These findings suggest trust has a greater impact on Republican voters than those who vote Democrat.

Why are minorities less likely to vote?

Racialized Americans are often found to have a low voter turnout. The Pew Research Center has reported that the turnout rate in the 2016 presidential election was 65.3 per cent among white registered voters, 59.6 per cent among Blacks, 49.3 per cent among Asians and 47.6 per cent among Hispanics.

Common explanations for why minorities are less likely to vote include voter suppression and systematic discrimination. However, in his recent book The Turnout Gap, political scientist Bernard Fraga has argued instead it’s the sense of political inequality that largely explains the majority-minority gap in turnout.

Turnout gaps

Trust is associated with control, political efficacy and sense of political empowerment. Can minorities’ lower trust explain their lower turnout?

To show how trust can help explain the turnout gap across racial groups, I estimate the average probability of voting for white people, Black people and other racialized Americans using data from both surveys. The base model includes race and year variables, while the second model adds a trust variable to the base model. Here’s a visualization:

Graph A shows that the average turnout rate among white voters over an 18-year span is 78 per cent, 69 per cent among Black voters and 63 per cent among other racialized Americans.

When taking into account the trust differences among these groups, these numbers become 76 per cent, 74 per cent and 64 per cent respectively (Graph B). In other words, the relative gaps in turnout have become significantly smaller. For example, the gap between white voters and Black voters in Graph A is nine percentage points, but after controlling for trust, it’s only a relatively insignificant two percentage points. These findings are based on the ANES data.

Replicating the analysis using data from the GSS shows a consistent pattern. See Graphs C and D.

What does this show us in broader terms?

Democracy only works well when citizens participate in the democratic process and participate equally. But in the United States, lack of trust is eroding democracy’s promise.

Cary Wu, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, York University, Canada

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Canada has extended its restriction on non-essential international entries until the end of November as Coronavirus cases continue to rise.

The North American nation has, however, eased quarantine rules for some cut-off Canada-US border communities.

The travel ban has been in force since mid-March, while Ottawa and Washington have a separate arrangement prohibiting non-essential travel between their two countries set to expire one week earlier.

Travellers allowed into Canada despite the ban must still quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

But Public Safety Minister Bill Blair on Friday said, “some practical adjustments” to the rule would be made to allow residents of a few outlier communities, to cross the border to access necessities such as food and medical care without having to self-isolate after each trip.

He specifically listed Campobello Island in New Brunswick; Stewart, British Columbia; Northwest Angle, Minnesota; and Hyder, Alaska – all cut off from their respective countries due to border irregularities, such as panhandles.

The government will also allow exemptions for a pilot project with the province of Alberta on alternatives to quarantines.

Elizabeth Steyn, Western University

Mining is major business in Canada, particularly operations conducted beyond its borders. The Canadian mining industry, however, has often been criticized for its human rights record abroad.

In 2018, Canadian companies had mining assets in 100 countries abroad, valued at $174.4 billion. This made up two-thirds of total Canadian mining assets.

Among the 100 countries was Eritrea, where the operations of the gold, copper and zinc Bisha mine gave rise to one of the most closely observed pieces of litigation in Canada in recent years, largely because it involved allegations of slave labour and torture. Its recent settlement in near total silence therefore raises some important questions.

Alleged human rights abuses

First, though, it’s important to understand what happened in the case. In 2014, three Eritrean plaintiffs launched a class-action lawsuit in the British Columbia Supreme Court against a Vancouver-based mining company, Nevsun Resources.

They alleged that they had suffered human rights abuses at the Bisha mine, including slavery and torture, as well as a variety of domestic violations, including assault, battery and unlawful confinement. The mine was held by a consortium comprising Nevsun and the Eritrean government.

The claimants said they were part of Eritrea’s involuntary and indefinite military conscripts and deployed to work at the mine for subsistence wages. When they tried to flee, they were allegedly beaten with sticks, tied up and left to lie in the hot sand in temperatures of up to 50 C.

Under provincial court rules, a defendant may request early on that a matter be removed from the court’s roll, arguing essentially that the claim has no reasonable chance of succeeding. Nevsun made this request.

At the end of February 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the decisions of the British Columbia Supreme Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal, refusing the defendant’s request. Justice Rosalie Abella concluded:

“Customary international law is part of Canadian law. Nevsun is a company bound by Canadian law. It is not ‘plain and obvious’ to me that the Eritrean workers’ claims against Nevsun based on breaches of customary international law cannot succeed.”

This opened the way for the matter to proceed to trial. It had the potential to set a major precedent in terms of the liability of Canadian mining companies for wrongs committed abroad.

Québec case

Attempts to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for the human rights abuses or environmental disasters of their subsidiaries abroad date back to a 1998 Québec case, Recherches Internationales Québec (RIQ) vs. Cambior Inc. In this case, toxic waste water had spilled into Guyana’s main river, the Essequibo, after the failure of Omai gold mine’s waste treatment dam.

As primary shareholder of Omai, Cambior had both financed and supervised the mining project. The Québec Superior Court ruled that a Guyanese court should hear the matter. But the 23,000 Guyanese victims did not succeed in the High Court of Guyana, though they tried twice.

The recent settlement of Nevsun vs. Araya didn’t make very much news in the Canadian media. The Franco-African press reported that a terse news release had invoked confidentiality, indicating that the parties had reached a “mutually satisfactory arrangement.” This means that the litigation came to an abrupt end.

One can’t blame the Eritrean plaintiffs for wanting to end the matter. It’s also understandable that the company wished to avoid the increased media attention that court cases bring. The mining industry undoubtedly will breathe a sigh of relief.

Kept quiet

The disturbing aspect of this settlement is that it has been kept so quiet. It ends a high-profile case with an elevated potential for setting negative precedents for Canadian mining companies operating abroad. Contrast this with the settlement terms of another matter involving allegations of human rights abuses, Garcia vs. Tahoe Resources, Inc.

In that case, the B.C. Court of Appeal had cleared the way for a trial against Tahoe Resources, which, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, fully controlled the operations of the Escobal mine in Guatemala.

The mine’s security guards had fired on protesters, leading to criminal charges against the mine’s head of security in Guatemala. The protesters launched a battery claim against Tahoe in Canada. The B.C. Court of Appeal allowed the matter to proceed in Canada, based on the risk of unfairness for the claimants in Guatemalan courts due to systemic corruption.

Tahoe was then acquired by Pan American Silver, which went on to settle the matter publicly. Terms of settlement included acknowledging wrongdoing and condemning the use of violence, apologizing to the victims and the community and reiterating the rights of the victims to protest against the mine in future. It was a win for the mining industry because harms had been redressed in a way that brought greater transparency.

Nevsun, too, was acquired by another company, Zijin Mining, prior to the settlement. But the similarities end there.

Make no mistake. I am not opposed to the Nevsun settlement. Settling matters avoids extensive litigation and high legal costs.

But what’s troublesome is the veil of secrecy in which this settlement is cloaked. Greater transparency, while not legally required, would have demonstrated that Nevsun is a responsible mining company that takes the interests of its stakeholders seriously. Instead, Nevsun remains silent.

Elizabeth Steyn, Cassels Brock Fellow and Assistant Professor of Mining and Finance Law; Public and Private International Law Research Group Member, Western University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Neil Price, University of Toronto and Emis Akbari, University of Toronto

The recent UNICEF report card exposes Canada for failing its young children. The report, appropriately called “World’s Apart,” examines the status of children from the world’s most developed countries and looks at child happiness, well-being and skill. Among 38 developed economies, Canada falls 30th overall.

Unfortunately, the report highlights a recurring issue in Canada. It is one of many reports over the past two decades that demonstrate the inequities faced by many Canadian children.

How can Canada with its relatively positive environmental, social and economic conditions, fall so drastically behind the United Nations’ most recent targets for a sustainable world?

Risks to physical and mental well-being like poverty, systemic racism, pollution, climate change and uneven access to early education, all endanger opportunities for growth and development. According to the report, these dangers are far too widespread.

Canada’s inequity gaps are wide, child poverty is rampant and national averages gloss over worse conditions for those from racialized communities and Indigenous children. The report reveals that although the average child poverty rate in Canada is one in five, children from Black communities have rates as high as one in three. Within some Indigenous communities it’s a staggering one in two.

Something that should put all Canadians on alert is that this report provides a picture of the status of Canadian children prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic brings with it new pressures and threats to child health and well-being.

The inequity gaps will likely grow.

Read more: Coronavirus school closures could widen inequities for our youngest students

Anti-racist uprisings add urgency

The UNICEF report arrives at a time of immense global protest spurred in part by the disproportionate impacts COVID-19 has had on racialized communities.

Entrenched racism and ongoing police brutality are issues that compound the conditions that children live within. We feel a growing impatience with reports that repeatedly illustrate the enormous challenges that children face but offer few concrete solutions.

In its report, UNICEF recommends policy-makers and communities “be accountable,” “be bold” and “listen to children and youth.” However, the report fails to take into account all the ways in which Black and Indigenous communities in Canada have been historically and systematically prevented from taking up such encouragements.

There is little acknowledgement of how racialized communities have been marginalized through the denial of resources and involvement in policy development. This is often the case with such reports.

COVID-19

Black and Indigenous children have been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, so it should be clear that equity-focused approaches are required.

Yet most reports fail to emphasize culturally appropriate responses as an essential criteria for improving the well-being of children. We see no evidence of concerted efforts among Canadian policy-makers to use disaggregated race-based data to propose programs and funding mechanisms to help the most vulnerable.

How policy-makers and government bodies respond will determine the outcome for Canadian children, especially those within marginalized communities. Specific and customized responses to barriers in education, health and well-being are critically important as we move through and beyond COVID-19.

However, local and federal governments have been prioritizing resuscitation of the economy over addressing the social impacts of the pandemic. As a result, Black and Indigenous children are poised to slide further down health indices unless concrete and urgent steps are taken to address their unique circumstances. To begin to rectify Canada’s long-standing inaction towards the well-being of Black and Indigenous Peoples, policy-makers must act now.

Barriers to ‘bold action’

Funding discrepancies between non-Indigenous and Indigenous children must end. Governments must ensure that all children, regardless of their economic status, indigeneity, parent employment, race and ethnicity, have equal opportunities. This requires equitable policies.

We recommend a move toward action-based, participatory approaches to research and policy that offer concrete proposals for policy development that target the deeply entrenched inequities that form Canada’s social and economic foundation.

Policies need to be integrated with systems of education and health that have unique and important roles towards reconciliation.

Strong, focused and equitable policies to support children are needed now more than ever. Now that we have seen decades of consistent evidence of inequity and poverty, Canadian policy makers should not need to see another report. They need to take action. Canada’s children deserve better. They need federal efforts to rectify the obvious opportunity gaps. Canada’s track record leaves out too many: it needs to do better. Not tomorrow, today.

Neil Price, PhD student, Adult Education and Community Development, University of Toronto and Emis Akbari, Adjunct Professor, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE), University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.