Number of voters who cast Ontario municipal election ballots is down. Here's why that matters

Dorothy McCabe was pretty excited to win the mayoral race in Waterloo on Monday night.

She wasn't, however, happy to see that just 27 per cent of people in the southern Ontario city went to the polls, according to Waterloo region figures.

McCabe, who will replace Dave Jaworsky as mayor, said it was "troubling" as a candidate to see a drop in voter turnout — it was at 34.22 per cent of eligible voters in 2018 — especially because municipal politics play such a big role in what we use every day, from roads, to water and sewage and neighbourhood parks.

"That's obviously really problematic," McCabe said in an interview with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition on Tuesday morning.

"I have some potential ideas about what we can do about that, but there's some long-term fixes I think that we need to take a look at to get people" to vote.

McCabe said it's concerning people didn't take the time to vote for people who will make key decisions about their communities.

"We're going to have to do something, see if there's a way to change that because voting matters."

If you didn't vote in 2022, you're far from alone. The turnout was down across many Ontario municipalities.

According to early numbers from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, there was a 36 per cent turnout across 301 of 444 municipalities that held local elections. The preliminary figures suggested that percentage might be lower than the in 2018 election.

Robert Williams, a political science professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo, said the low voter turnout was his biggest surprise of the night, and "a concern."

"I had thought there was a greater attention to some of the matters coming before some of the councils and school boards that would drive some turnout. Apparently that hasn't happened,"  he said in an interview with CBC K-W.

LISTEN | Low voter turnout biggest surprise of the night for this Waterloo region political watcher:

Breaking down the municipalities' numbers further, here's how things looked in Waterloo region, compared to four years ago, according to numbers from city and township clerks through the municipal websites:

North Dumfries Township didn't report voter turnout numbers and didn't respond to CBC K-W's request for the numbers.