To meet the research objectives, qualitative research was conducted with electors (Canadians aged 18 or older who are eligible to vote). In-person and online focus groups and in-depth telephone interviews were conducted with the following groups of electors:
Recruitment adhered to the Government of Canada's Standards for the Conduct of Government of Canada Public Opinion Research – Qualitative Research on recruitment specifications. A recruitment screener was developed to identify potential participants. Participants were recruited through the following methods: an opt-in database, cold calling, and via the NES survey.7 When recruiting, individuals were offered the option to conduct the recruitment interview in English or French. That said, all individuals recruited were fluent in the language in which the focus group was being conducted. In Montréal, the primary language of all recruited individuals was French and elsewhere it was English. The identity of the client (i.e. Elections Canada) was revealed during the recruitment interview.
During the recruitment interview, potential participants were informed of their rights under the Privacy Act, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and Access to Information Act. This included: informing participants of the purpose of the research; that participation is completely voluntary; that all information collected would be used for research purposes only; and that they would be asked to sign a waiver to acknowledge that they would be video-recorded during the session (in-person focus group participants only). Written consent was also obtained from each participant prior to video recording.
In hindsight, two aspects of the recruitment could have been adjusted. First, electors who worked at the polls could have been excluded from the research. While this was a rare occurrence, future research of this nature would benefit from limiting the participation of anyone who worked as a staff or poll officer in the recent election. Second, the recruitment criteria for persons with disabilities were deliberately inclusive to accommodate research design and budget considerations. However, the qualitative research could have benefitted from including quotas on the severity of one's disability, from mild to severe, to maximize the diversity of the feedback.
The moderator's guide was developed in consultation with Elections Canada. Modified versions of the in-person focus group guide were used for the online focus groups and in-depth interviews. The guide included discussion on a presentation of advertising and communication pieces from Elections Canada's voter information campaign. See Appendix 3 for an overview of the advertising materials tested.
The following specifications applied to the research:
In total, 121 eligible electors participated in this research: 90 electors participated in the in-person focus groups, 21 in the online focus groups, and 10 in the in-depth interviews.
The moderators for this study were Philippe Azzie and Alethea Woods. Both contributed to the preparation of the final report.
All participants were paid an honorarium to thank them for taking part in the research. Electors with visual impairments were paid $150 and all other participants were paid $100.
Footnote 7 Respondents were asked if they could be contacted for follow-up research. This technique was used only for the harder-to-reach subpopulations (persons with disabilities and Indigenous electors). In the end, very few (i.e. three to four) participants in the qualitative research were also members of the longitudinal sample.