Most people already decided on transit vote: expert

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – There is just over a month to go until you can vote on a sales tax hike to pay for transportation improvements around Metro Vancouver.

But do the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns even matter or are people’s minds already made up?

Most are already committed to their decision, according to SFU marketing expert Lindsay Meredith.

He says the amount of bad press on TransLink over the last year makes getting people over to the yes side pretty difficult.

“TransLink does not have a lot of reputational cache among the voters in Vancouver. Whether it is SkyTrain breakdowns, an inability to collect fairs, turnstile fiascos, huge potential overruns in the Evergreen Line tunneling project, all of these things start to build up and create consumer resentment. What does that translate to? A potential ‘no’ vote.”

Whether it’s true or not, the negative perception adds up over time.

“Once you build that negative reputational equity, it’s tough to turn that around. You’ve got to have a whole bunch of good positive scores in your behaviour before people will start to forgive you,” he adds.

Meredith says there’s just not enough time for TransLink to do that, no matter how hard the ‘yes’ side campaigns.

He adds there is another aspect to the vote that may impact the final outcome. “If this were simply about getting the troops out to vote, I might be betting on the ‘yes’ side to mobilize enough of the committed of the voters out there who would show up to the polling stations and vote. Once it becomes a mail-in ballot that makes it a lot easier for everybody. That may well be the missing ingredient to help mobilize a big ‘no’ vote.”

The vote is asking whether you would be in favour of a half-per cent tax to fund transportation improvements.

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