The October 24th municipal election in Thunder Bay featured an assortment of voting options in an effort to make voting more convenient and thereby encourage greater turnout. On that front, the results were not favorable in that despite the increased options for the 2022 election, there was a decline in turnout. Apparently, about 43 percent of the city’s 83,679 eligible voters cast a ballot which was down from nearly 51 percent in 2018. While Thunder Bay voters were more engaged than the provincial average, the results were a disappointment given the effort expended.
What is also of interest is whether or not different voting methods may be associated with the outcomes. A case in point is the Councillor-At-Large Race which saw 140,095 ballots cast. Given that there were about 35,980 voters who cast ballots, and each could vote for up to five choices, this means that a total of 179,900 votes were up for grabs. Given that only 140,095 were cast – 78 percent of those available –a proportion decided to vote for fewer than five candidates. This suggests that some voters were unhappy with the available choices even given the large number of candidates or may have been voting more strategically by voting for their preferred candidate(s) and not supporting anyone else.
More to the point is the difference between the number of paper ballots and internet ballots cast. Of the 140,095 ballots cast, 50,403 (or 35 percent) were paper ballots while 89,692 (65 percent) were internet ballots. This suggests that there was indeed a marked preference for internet voting in this election. Figure 1 shows the results for total ballots cast with the five winners in red – Bentz, Ch’ng, Giertuga, Agarwal and Etreni – followed by Judge, Barrett, and Margarit.
If one looks at only the paper ballot results, the winners would be Bentz, Giertuga, Ch’ng, Judge and Agarwal, followed by Etreni, Barrett and Mauro. If one only uses the internet results, the five winners would be Bentz, Ch’ng, Giertuga, Etreni and Agarwal, with the next three spots taken by Barrett, Judge and Margarit. While the top three spots were unaffected – and went to incumbents – there were differences in who would occupy the next two spots. Paper ballots alone would see Judge and Agarwal on council with Etreni in sixth place while internet balloting alone would see Etreni and Agarwal with Barrett in sixth place.
Can one draw any conclusions from these results? Without detailed data that allows you to correlate voter characteristics (eg. age and income) with ballot method preferences and voting outcomes, it is difficult to really know if these results mean anything at all. However, it is not too much of a stretch to argue that most important conclusion is that candidates need to campaign to attract both types of voters – paper ballot voters and internet voters. Victory is ensured by coming out on top in both types of voting methods. Voters who prefer internet voting are probably more likely to be web and social media savvy and will require a more sustained campaign targeted towards them as well as more traditional door to door type campaigning.
In the end, internet voting makes it easier to vote well in advance of election day meaning much of the campaign is over well before the official voting day. However, if you are an incumbent, name recognition alone seems to guarantee a top place finish. It is only for the new entrants that campaigning vigorously on a variety of platforms seem to matter more.
One other thing. Given the differences across voting
platforms that can emerge and the rather erratic flow of results on election
night, it is imperative that the release of results be better coordinated in
future. One can only imagine the effect
on candidates as they watched their rankings seesaw in the blink of an eye on
election evening as internet voting tallies flooded in.