Election day challenge: Stop turnout slump
It’s Oct. 22 — and the push to get people to the polls is on
Today, Hamilton will choose its leaders for the next four years — but the majority of the city’s residents won’t show up to elect them.
With the exception of a brief spike in 2010, voter turnout in Hamilton’s municipal elections has been steadily falling since the city was amalgamated in 2000.
Hamilton’s voter turnout in 2014 was only 34 per cent — well below the 2014 average among other municipalities of 43 per cent.
The voter turnout was considered so paltry that council discussed ways to help boost turnout for the 2018 vote.
While there are some bright spots, the areas with the some of the highest needs also see the lowest turnout, said Jeff Wingard, community development co-ordinator at McMaster University and the project manager of the Hamilton Community Foundation’s Vital Signs project.
“In the last election, in some cases it was really encouraging — like Dundas, which had a 45 per cent turnout,” he said.
“But when you look at some of the other wards, particularly the downtown wards, they were below 30 per cent.”
Wingard points out that the low voter turnout suggests there’s disenfranchisement happening in those areas.
“It shows that people aren’t really informed about the impact of local voting, or there’s a lack of hope about how the system can address those needs,” he said.
“It is a tough slog to get out people who are busy, who are holding down an couple of jobs, who are dealing with a lot of life stuff.”
There are some factors that can boost turnout in municipal elections, Wingard said — particularly if there’s a hot-button issue (such as LRT) driving people to the polls, or if the incumbent has stepped down or appears to be vulnerable. When an incumbent runs for re-election, attendance tends to drop in that area.
“The other thing that I’ve noticed is if there’s an incumbent that’s running, sometimes that drives down turnout. Because people are kind of assuming that they’ll get in,” said Wingard.
Wingard also points out that turnout for municipal elections has been lower than provincial or federal elections.
Turnout for the provincial election was over 50 per cent, while roughly 55 per cent of Hamiltonians voted in the 2015 federal election — the highest turnout since 1993 at the federal level.
Despite the low municipal turnout in 2014, 2018 is already showing signs of improvement: Advance polls saw a 19 per cent increase in voter turnout.