Voter turnout up and down.

Jeff Green | Nov 04, 2010

It’s not easy to find a logical pattern to explain the voter turnout in last week’s municipal election. In South Frontenac the turnout was 44.1%, up from 43% in 2006, but still down from the 50% turnout in 2003, the last year that South Frontenac residents voted by mail. They now vote by Internet/telephone.

In Central Frontenac, where mail-in voting is still in place, the turnout was 46%, down from 51.6% in 2006.

In North Frontenac, where they also use mail-in voting, the turnout this time was 40%, up from 38% in 2006.

In Addington Highlands, which used Internet/telephone voting for the second time, the turnout was 33.7% this time around, up from 32% in 2006. The increase in voters in Addington Highlands is surprising in a way, because there was no race for mayor this time around and there was one in 2006.

The turnout in the local municipalities last time around suggested that people preferred mail-in to Internet/telephone voting. In 2006, all the townships with mail-in voting saw the same number or more people voting as compared to 2003. All the townships with internet/telephone voting saw a marked decrease in voter turnout.

This time around the Internet/Telephone townships recovered their voters slightly and the mail-in townships saw mixed results.

The region differed from some of the major centres in the province where the populace supported candidates that stood against the status quo, such as in London, Toronto, and Oshawa. Here, most of the incumbents, and all the incumbent mayors, were re-elected.