East Gwillimbury considers ways to boost voter turnout after double-digit decline in 2022

The town added online voting as option for 2022 election, but voter turnout was 25%

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 6, 2023
Simon Martin

The voter turnout in the 2022 election in East Gwillimbury was bad. Just how bad? Of 25,3151 eligible voters only 6,408 cast a ballot putting voter turnout at an anemic 25.3 per cent.

East Gwillimbury town staff outlined the details at a council meeting Jan. 24.

Staff cited voter fatigue after a provincial election four months earlier and noncompetitive races as possible reasons why turnout was low.

East Gwillimbury wasn’t alone in experiencing a dip in voter turnout. According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) average voter turnout across the province dipped two per cent from 2018, when the average turnout was 38 per cent.

The numbers were unfortunate said town clerk Tara Lajevardi as the town had implemented new measures aimed at increasing turnout for the 2022 election including an online voting option. 

For Holland Landing resident Linda Farquharson the turnout number was disappointing. “Come on people this is important,” she said. “There is just so much apathy. Maybe it’s getting harder to get answers. Clear answers.” Farquharson moved to the area 5 years ago and tried to get up to speed on the local scene as quick as possible. “It would never occur to me not to vote,” she said.   In the future she said she hoped their were more debates  because it’s hard to get a feel for the candidates.

“I think we are all disappointed that turnout wasn’t higher,” Ward 3 Coun. Scott Crone said. “I’m struggling to think what more could be done to get voter turnout up.”

That sentiment was echoed by Ward 2 Coun. Tara Roy-DiClemente. “I don’t think there is anything more that staff team could have done to bring attention to the election,” she said.

Roy-DiClemente flagged a voters list, which was years out of date as an issue during the campaign that should be improved moving forward. The voters list is provided by the Municipal Property Assessment Corp.

Ward 1 Coun. Loralea Carruthers said she didn’t know how the town could have communicated anymore. “Anyone who didn’t know that there was an election wasn’t paying attention. You can’t force people to pay attention,” she said.

In East Gwillimbury (EG), the highest turnout was in Ward 3 (Mount Albert) where 30.4 per cent of people cast a ballot. Ward 3 also had the most competitive councillor race. Ward 2 followed with turnout of 23.5 per cent. Ward 1 brought up the rear with turnout at 22.75 per cent. Both Ward 1 councillors Loralea Carruthers and Terry Foster were acclaimed so there was no competitive race.

The election had advance voting including online voting for 16 days as well as advanced in-person voting for five days.

“You could truly see that here had been a lot of work done in place before the election,” Mayor Virginia Hackson said. “You could see that here was huge change happening in East Gwillimbury.”

While the town did offer online voting in advance of election, they did not offer it on election day Lajevardi said. “We did receive a lot of feedback from the public about why that was the case,” she said.

Because the town has seen so much growth in recent years, Lajevardi said they will be looking at providing more election information in different languages in the future.

“One area that was very new is that we did have an acclamation in Ward 1,” she said. “We did see a bit of the decrease in the turnout in that ward, but it’s not that EG was the only one that suffered from low turnout.”

Carruthers said one element that might help in the future is having more public debates. There were not many this election, she said. “We need to make sure that debates can happen easily. Town facilities are great places to have debates,” she said. “I think turnout would go up if people could actually see the candidates and interact with them.”