While Progressive Conservatives may have won a landslide victory Thursday night, a large majority of Ontarians decided not to bother going to the polls.
The province recorded the lowest turnout in history during the 2022 election, with only 43.5 per cent of eligible voters voting according to the preliminary results of Elections Ontario.
Of the just over 10.7 million registered voters in the province, this equates to just over 4.6 million votes cast.
That’s about 13.5 percentage points lower than the turnout in the 2018 provincial election.
The last time the turnout was below 50% was in 2011, when only 48% of Ontario residents over the age of 18 voted.
Never before in Ontario’s history has voter turnout fallen so low.
Vandana Kattar, a strategist in the prime minister’s office, attributed the low turnout to the lack of commitment between politicians and Ontario residents, which may have led to a lack of motivation on election day.
“I don’t think voters understood why they were voting,” he said Thursday during the CTV News election special in Ontario. “I think that more than negative politics, people don’t want to hear what the other person isn’t going to do. They want to hear what you’re going to do for you. And that goes back to not getting your message across. And not sharing it.”
PCs WON 40.8 PERCENT OF THESE VOTES
According to preliminary results, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won just over 1.9 million votes, winning 83 seats in the legislature.
The New Democratic Party, which formed the Ontario Official Opposition on Thursday night, retained 23.7% of the vote (31 seats), while the Liberals gained some ground with 23.6% of votes (eight seats).
The Green Party won about six percent of the vote, leading to a seat in the legislature.
Speaking to reporters in Etobicoke on Friday morning, Ford did not appear concerned about the low turnout, and reiterated that Ontarians made a firm decision on election day.
“I think it’s pretty clear that the people gave us a mandate with 83 seats and we’re going to focus on our mandate. We’ve been traveling around this province for the last four or five weeks, setting a clear direction.”
Ford also said he would not focus on election reform, an issue that other parties touched on their campaign platforms. He said the system has worked “for more than 100 years and some weird years.”
“It will continue to work that way,” he told reporters.