Can election results be explained, given that each ballot reflects the influence of countless impressions, decisions, and attachments? Leading young scholars of political behaviour piece together a comprehensive portrait of the modern Canadian voter to reveal the challenges of understanding election results. By systematically exploring the long-standing attachments, short-term influences, and proximate factors that influence our behaviour in the voting booth, this theoretically grounded and methodologically advanced collection sheds new light on the choices we make as citizens and provides important insights into recent national developments.

"A timely and important contribution to voting literature. Both Canadians and Americans will develop a better understanding of their neighbours' elections, but will also gain many new insights into the politics of their own country." - Larry LeDuc, University of Toronto

Why do Canadians vote the way they do? For more than forty years, the primary objective of the ongoing Canadian Election Studies (CES) has been to investigate that question. This volume brings together principal investigators of the Studies to document the history of this impressive collection of surveys, examine what has been learned, and consider their future. The wide-ranging collection of essays provides useful background and insights on the relevance of the CES and lends perspective to the debate about where to steer the CES in the years ahead.

Devoted to exploring elections as the central act in a democracy, Duty and Choice: The Evolution of the Study of Voting and Voters is animated by a set of three overarching questions: Why do some citizens vote while others do not? How do voters decide to cast their ballots for one candidate and not another? How does the context in which citizens live influence the choices they make? Organized into three sections focused on turnout, vote choice, and electoral systems, the volume seeks to provide novel insights into the most pressing questions for scholars of vote choice and voting behaviour. In addition to featuring several prominent Canadian scholars, the collection includes chapters by leading scholars from the United States and Europe.

This collection offers an in-depth look at municipal voting behaviour during local elections in eight of Canada's largest cities.

While Quebec is well known for its provincial-level party politics and thriving nationalism, voting behaviour and electoral campaigning at the municipal level have failed to gain much attention to date. Voting in Quebec Municipal Elections seeks to transform the state of municipal elections research in Quebec through a systematic study of the 2017 Montreal and Quebec City elections. Drawing upon data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study, the authors demonstrate not only the importance of Quebec municipal politics, but the many ways that municipal elections research can inform our broader understanding of voting behaviour in the province. This volume considers the features particular to the Quebec local context, such as the importance of language and nationalism, the effects of local party labels for down-ballot races, and the role of ideology. Voting in Quebec Municipal Elections represents the largest-ever collection of work on local elections in the province’s history, making a significant contribution to our understanding of the municipal voter in Quebec.