Richmond Hill’s 2018 municipal election voter turnout dips by 5 per cent

27 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the municipal election

Yorkregion.com
October 26, 2018
Sheila Wang

You can’t say Richmond Hill residents don’t care about civic affairs.

They attend council meetings, they grill the council candidates during the election and they discuss town issues online all the time.

But the voter turnout rate tells a different story.

Only 27 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots to elect a mayor and six ward councillors for the 2018-2022 term, while a vast majority of residents sat back and watched.

The voter turnout of Richmond Hill’s municipal elections has been historically low, but this time around, it was lower than the previous two elections.

It is also notably lower than the average of York Region this year, at 33 per cent.

“It is sad,” said Bryon Wilfert, a former Liberal MP and now the Honorary Consul General for Myanmar.

He pointed out that two factors could have impacted the engagement in this election; no contentious races and lack of defining issues.

Boring races

The five-way mayoral race in Richmond Hill did not generate as much interest as expected.

“There is no exciting mayoral race in the sense there is no existing member of council or someone who is very very well-known challenging the mayor,” Wilfert said.

Incumbent Dave Barrow beat out all four challengers with an overwhelming 76 per cent of the votes cast. Susan Korman who came second in the mayoral race garnered only 15.5 per cent of the votes, according to the unofficial municipal election results.

Among the 31,497 residents who went to the polls, a vast majority--30,635 voters--cast their ballots for mayor, where Barrow garnered 23,304 votes.

The second-highest turnout went to the regional councillor race where the two incumbents are retiring. Joe DiPaola (11,758) and Carmine Perrelli (11,418) defeated six other contenders and secured the two wide open seats.

“Very few people really understand what regional councillors do,” Wilfert noted, which might has resulted in less engagement in the race.

Meanwhile, the fact that Ward 3 Coun. Castro Liu has been acclaimed has also affected the voter turnout rate, he added.

Lack of defining issues

There has been a lack of motivation to get people to vote due to the lack of defining issues, Wilfert said.

There could have been a number of key issues to bring people out to the polls in the election, such as the costly move of the town hall, business environment and intensification and affordable housing, the former Richmond Hill MP said.

These issues--skimmed over during the candidate meetings--did not move forward to become keys to any race in this municipal election.

Despite the relatively high attendance of the candidate events, Wilfert said, most people have had their minds made up on whom would get their votes even before attending.

A great number of people, on the other hand, were simply unaware of the municipal election at all, he said.

A summer survey by Nano Research found that one-third of Ontarians were not aware of the looming municipal election and most people who don’t vote say they don’t care about politics or don’t know enough.

The low turnout did not come as a surprise to Dennis Pilon, York University associate professor of politics Dennis Pilon.

“I would have predicted that for you if you called me before the election,” Pilon told yorkregion.com.

He said voter turnout at the municipal level is traditionally low because voters find it more difficult to navigate compared to the federal and provincial level of politics.

Without political party labels, Pilon added, there are fewer shortcuts available at the municipal level, which would make it easier to vote for a specific party.

Now what

 

Statistics show that Richmond Hill is not alone riding the downward trend in political engagement at the municipal level as the average voter turnout rate of York Region dropped to 33 per cent this year, down by five per cent from four years ago.

“Voter turnout is a complicated issue. There is not one single factor you can point to that will explain voter turnout,” said Stephen Huycke, director of legislative services/town clerk of Richmond Hill.

Acknowledging the difficulties in changing the status quo, Wilfert said voting should be made easier.

“I think there should be a standard ballot across the province.”

He said he noticed the ways of filling the ballots varied from municipality to municipality across Ontario. Even in Richmond Hill and Markham, the two neighbouring municipalities, voters have to mark their choices in different ways.

Then again, he said it probably wouldn't matter much to those who are just not interested in civic politics.

“For the next four years, the media, people who follow this like myself, we just have to continue to comment and to point out. We have to hold those elected to account. I think it’s gonna be very challenging next four years.”