How does voter turnout in Ontario compare across the various levels of government?

On October 26, 2026, residents of Ontario’s 444 municipalities will elect representatives of their local government. It’s something they get to do every four years. Municipal governments, along with the provincial and federal governments, make up the three orders of government that represent Ontarians. And among the three orders of government, municipal governments are the closest to the people and provide services that most directly impact residents.

People interact with municipal governments multiple times a day. Each time they wash their hands or flush the toilet, they are using services or infrastructure provided by municipalities. The same goes for when they drive on roads, walk along sidewalks, or cycle along bike lanes. Municipalities are also responsible for delivering critical services such as police, fire services, ambulance and paramedicine, childcare, shelters, and public transit. They also fund key educational and cultural services including libraries, parks, community centres, and recreation programming. These are big items that require big budgets, and where service disruptions have real consequences for residents and businesses.

Municipal elections have the lowest voter turnout

Despite the impact municipal governments have on people’s daily lives, voter turnout during municipal elections significantly lags behind that of provincial and federal elections. Since 2010, Ontarians have voted in four municipal elections, five provincial elections, and five federal elections. Federal elections have had the highest turnout, averaging 63.58% over the past five elections. Meanwhile, provincial elections recorded an average voter turnout of 49.08% over the past five elections. And then there are municipal elections. Over the past four municipal elections, voter turnout averaged 36.75%. That’s nearly 27 percentage points lower than federal elections, and about 13 percentage points lower than provincial elections.

Which Ontario municipalities had the highest voter turnout during the 2022 municipal elections?

For our analysis, we only included cities and towns with at least 10,000 eligible voters. That reduced the overall number of cities and towns studied to 139, down from 444. Among these, the average voter turnout was 33.80% while the median was 33.57%. Smaller municipalities, those with fewer than 25,000 eligible voters, tend to have higher voter turnout, while voter turnout in larger cities tends to trend downwards. The City of Kenora, located near the border with Manitoba, had the highest voter turnout (53%) during the 2022 municipal election. It was followed by Kingsville (50.1%), Wasaga Beach (48.9%), West Nipissing (48.2%), and Niagara-on-the-Lake (47.7%). A notable exception is Ottawa, where 316,254 of 722,227 eligible voters cast a ballot, representing a voter turnout of 43.7%, placing it among the top 15 municipalities for voter turnout during the 2022 municipal elections. Meanwhile, the five municipalities with the lowest voter turnout are Essa (15.3%), Scugog (18.3%), Oshawa (18.4%), Kitchener (20.2%), and King (21.3%). The City of Mississauga also ranks among the municipalities with the lowest voter turnout, at 21.8%, placing it sixth-to-last, or 134th out of the 139 municipalities analysed.

This map was made using data from the following sources: the Government of Ontario and Statistics Canada.