The election results are in... and what do they show? That voter turnout has dropped to its lowest level since 1887. 

It’s something of an irony that voter turnout is so low in an era when the potential for voter engagement is so high - the technical capabilities were certainly proven during Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2008. 

But there’s been very little actual voter engagement over the past three weeks. The days of the town hall meetings are certainly gone and virtual versions haven’t exactly risen to fill the void. 

It’s interesting to think just how much so-called “voter apathy” might be controlled by the way that political parties decide how to direct their communications during election campaigns.  

These days, every step along the campaign trail is tightly controlled. And the low voter turn-out has to be, in part, related to these past few weeks of highly stage-managed events. 

As communicators, we all know that risk management is important. And the media is exceptionally quick to swoop when a politician puts a foot wrong - the week-long focus on the tea tapes surely highlights that. 

According to University of Canterbury research on media coverage of the election campaign, released late last week, non-policy coverage made up 59% of the total election coverage this year. It seems that the media was driven away from policy by wall-to-wall tea tape headlines – the story that just kept running. 

So it’s no surprise that election campaign managers guard their masters’ every move. Better to “shut down” a potential bad news story (such as the Green Party’s billboard fiasco) than get caught in a week of non-policy headlines. 

But perhaps there needs to be a balance to ensure that voters get a chance to engage in the issues, to ask their own questions and put across their own points of view. 

If there are lessons to be learnt for politicians, there are also lessons for the media. 

This campaign has been a two-horse race, with one horse picked to win comfortably from the beginning. In his blog on Friday, University of Otago’s Bryce Edwards, talked about the heavy reliance on opinion polls during this election:  

In the absence of meaningful debate, discussion and electoral issues, they have become a focus for framing and following the campaign. It’s easy for the media and political commentators to put together analysis, stories, and headlines based on the numbers. 

He says recent research shows that the publication of opinion polls can influence voters by causing a “bandwagon effect, inducing an underdog effect and encouraging strategic voting”. 

And so it would seem that opinion polls can also signal a foregone conclusion in an election, making many voters believe there is little point getting out of the house to vote.