Although the Progressive Conservatives may have won a landslide victory Thursday night, the vast majority of Ontarians have decided not to bother running for office.
The province recorded the lowest turnout in history in the 2022 election, with only about 43.5% of eligible voters voting according to preliminary results from the Ontario election.
Of just over 10.7 million registered voters in the province, this equates to just over 4.6 million.
This is about 13.5 percentage points lower than the turnout in the provincial elections in 2018.
The last time turnout was below 50% was in 2011, when only 48% of Ontario residents over the age of 18 voted.
No other turnout in Ontario has dropped so low.
Vandana Qatar, a strategist in the prime minister’s office, attributed the low turnout to a lack of engagement between politicians and Ontario residents, which may have led to a lack of motivation on election day.
“I find that voters did not understand what they were voting for,” she said during a special election on CTV News in Ontario on Thursday. “I think more than negative politics, people don’t want to hear what the other person won’t do. They want to hear what you will do for yourself. And that comes back to not delivering your message and not sharing it. “
COMPUTERS WON 40.8% OF THESE VOTES
According to preliminary results, Doug Ford’s progressive Conservatives won just over 1.9 million votes, leading to 83 seats in the legislature.
The new Democratic Party, which formed Ontario’s official opposition on Thursday night, held 23.7 percent of the vote (31 seats), while the Liberals won a small position with 23.6 percent of the vote (eight seats).
The Green Party received about six percent of the vote.
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