Ontario sees lowest voter turnout since 1867

Voter turnout in yesterday's election was the lowest ever for a provincial election in Ontario, going back to 1867.

The average turnout in Ontario's 43 elections has been 65 per cent.

Pollster Quito Maggi, CEO of Mainstreet Research, attributes the low turnout to a low-energy election in which the Liberals and NDP never quite found a way of motivating voters.

"People don't really elect governments as much as un-elect them," he said. "When there's been change, turnout has been high.

"Conservatives gave their base a reason to go vote: Have to get it done, have to re-elect this government. Liberal and NDP voters largely weren't given that reason."

Outgoing Liberal and NDP leaders Steven Del Duca and Andrea Horwath also have to take responsibility for that, he said.

"I'm not surprised that both of them stepped down yesterday. I think it's absolutely a leadership failure."

"Change" elections — which this clearly wasn't — don't always attract a large turnout, however.

On the federal level, the 2015 election, which produced Justin Trudeau's Liberal majority, saw the highest turnout in a generation.

Part of the dynamic, he argued, is that the pandemic shut down most of the activity that generates community and excitement in the runup to an election, like well-attended nomination meetings, either didn't happen or happened in a rather disconnected way online.

The normal procession of events like pancake breakfasts and corn roasts that expose a leader to as many people as possible haven't happened for over two years. Del Duca, who became Liberal leader more or less exactly as the pandemic began, and never had a seat in Queen's Park as leader, was especially hobbled by this.

As well, voter demographics that favour the PC party, like older voters, tend to normally have stronger voter turnout — so a listless election tends to give them an edge.

The previous all-time low was 48 per cent, set in the 2011 election.

Ontario's record-high voter turnout was in 1919, at 86 per cent. That was the first Ontario election in which women could vote, and was held in the depression and political ferment that followed the First World War.

Mainstreet Research is part owner of iPolitics and QP Briefing.