Voter turnout tells tale
Posted Nov 23, 2010 03:16:24 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Voter turnout in last month’s municipal election averaged 32 per cent across the Region, but a deeper analysis uncovers different issues.
Waterloo led the turnout parade at 41 per cent, followed by 29 per cent in Cambridge and 28 per cent in Kitchener.
Yet one ward — Kitchener’s Ward 5 — reached barely 20 per cent turnout (20.44%, to be exact) in the election based on early estimates. That’s the lowest turnout for any ward in the region according to numbers available today.
On the high end, we find Waterloo’s Ward 7, where there was a crowded field of high profile candidates and a turnout of almost 48 per cent (47.73%).
“It (Ward 7) also tends to be a more established neighbourhood, a lot of permanent residents or older residents who are more inclined to vote. So those factors plus the compelling race certainly contributed to bumping the turnout up as high as it was,” offer retired University of Waterloo political science professor Bob Williams by way of explanation.
Williams points to similarities in the low end turnouts in Kitchener’s Ward 5 and Waterloo’s Ward 4.
For starters, both wards had incumbents running — Kelly Galloway in Kitchener and Diane Freeman in Waterloo.
“There’s a lot of new development, people are not necessarily connected to the city, younger families and also an incumbent. The incumbent wards are the ones in which turnout tends to be fairly low,” Williams says in describing characteristics that are similar in both Kitchener and Waterloo where turnout was lowest.
Waterloo did remove about 4000 names from its 2006 voter’s list. They were the names of students who were in the first year of their university programs in 2006 and had likely moved on.
Williams was part of a voter support committee in Waterloo that tried to encourage greater turnout this year. He believes a compelling mayoral race and two referendum questions (fluoride and merger) played a role in bringing Waterloo’s turnout up to 41 per cent this year but he suspects the voter support committee deserves at least some of the credit.
And after a similar effort was launched in Kitchener in 2006 following dismal municipal election returns, Williams believes the city needs to address low voter turnout as part of a longer term strategy.
“No ward got over 30 per cent turnout and that’s simply an unacceptable scenario for the long term,” Williams states. “I think there needs to be a clear focus on what might help do that (raise voter turnout).”
Here’s a breakdown of voter turnout by ward. These numbers are based on early data and should only be considered estimates but they will not likely vary widely. Cambridge did not make any data available.
Waterloo:
Ward 1 – 38.43%
Ward 2 – 30.22%
Ward 3 – 36.04%
Ward 4 – 34.21%
Ward 5 – 35.93%
Ward 6 – 37.84%
Ward 7 – 47.73%
Kitchener:
Ward 1 – 28.79%
Ward 2 – 26.14%
Ward 3 – 21.77%
Ward 4 – 24.63%
Ward 5 – 20.44%
Ward 6 – 26.90%
Ward 7 – 26.83%
Ward 8 – 29.13%
Ward 9 – 26.73%
Ward 10 – 25.58%
