As I wrote in my previous post on the subject, talking about the *differences* that he claims I didn't address:

As for why this may affect younger voters more, the answer to me is simple: habit. Older voters tend to keep their old habits of voting and taking politics seriously, even when it doesn't deserve it. Younger people have less of such a habit. When politics wanes, so does the attraction of civic responsibility.

So as younger people enter the voting pipeline, they become increasingly less likely to pick up the *habit* of voting and the *sense* of civic responsibility—for precisely the same reason that older people cease to vote, so the decline in the rate of new voter uptake over time (ie, the decline in the "youth vote" over time) is not different in cause from the decline in the overall voter participation rate. What is this reason? Why, it is contained in the "accurate but needlessly (sic) partisan attack on the Liberals and Conservatives" in my post! It is not "needlessly" partisan. It is directly due to the political predilections embodied in the parties are responsible for the trend, as I discussed at length. (These may be due to further external factors.)

So in other words, I consider the focus on the decline of the youth vote to be an unnecessary distraction, since

1. There is no distinct youth vote; there is only new voter uptake.
2. The reasons for the decline in this uptake are not different from the reasons for older, more habituated voters dropping out.
3. The appearance of a difference in uptake as one moves down the generations is simply a result of the increasing lack of habituation of younger voters, due to 1 impeding 2.
4. The drop in uptake and habituation is due to the decline in role of government/decmocratic institutions in society, aided and abetted (or at least acceded to) by dominant political parties.

Thus to turn to the Member from Mustafa-Hirji's utterances:

This topic warrants more discussion and thought. However, I'd urge Steve not to confuse the youth turnout debate with the declining turnout debate. And if Steve thinks that declining youth turnout is a separate issue (something I've seen no evidence of), I'd ask that he keep that separate as well.

From 1-4 above, the declining turnout debate is no different from the declining youth turnout debate. It is simply a matter of math. The "youth vote" declines faster than the "elderly vote" (heh) because older voters drop the voting habit at a lower rate than younger voters fail to start voting. Which is simply the case with habits—it's harder to drop them than to avoid picking them up in the first place. (I quickly dismiss youth turnout on its own without discussion of decline as entirely uninteresting, and I point to the many historical restrictions on youth political participation that effectively codified in law the very reasons that create the difference between youth and older participation in a given election.)

Consequently, efforts to determine why young people don't vote should be replaced by efforts to determine why people in general don't vote--why participation overall is declining. And to this I have provided my own answer before; yes, a "partisan" answer, one that has to do with the content of politics itself. It's better than chasing after patronizing "youth vote" epiphenomena.