The trends aren’t looking positive.
If you look at voter turnout in Woolwich and Wellesley townships, it’s clear that municipal elections have struggled to engage a large share of the electorate. Woolwich’s turnout has generally hovered below 40 per cent since 1997, with a modest rebound from 31 per cent in 2018 to 34.7 per cent in 2022. Wellesley’s turnout was even lower in 2022, at a measly 24 per cent.
There are a variety of factors at play here, and according to the University of Guelph’s Leah Levac, a political science professor, these are trends that can be observed country-wide. Though municipal elections have a more direct impact on daily life, they don’t boast the same sort of turnout that provincial and federal elections do.
