Voter turnout in Ontario lowest in history, early data from Elections Ontario shows

Early data from Elections Ontario suggests that the 2022 provincial election had the worst voter turnout in history.

As of Friday morning, the Elections Ontario website indicated only 4.6 million out of 10.7 million eligible voters chose to cast a ballot in Thursday’s election.

That’s around 43 per cent of eligible voters.

Elections Ontario pulled the data so far with 98.98 per cent of the polls reporting — 7,990 polling stations out of 8,072.

For comparison, the 2018 provincial election saw 57 per cent voter turnout, which was the highest voter turnout in over decade at the time.

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Other recent provincial election years saw anywhere from 48 per cent to 66 per cent voter turnout.

However, in the 10-day period for advance polls this year there were 1,066,545 votes cast, representing about 9.92 per cent of eligible voters.

2:00 ‘What a result’: Ontario Premier Doug Ford revels in victory, lands second majority

Advance polls increased from five days to 10 days which generated about a quarter of the total ballots cast.

Doug Ford won a second majority on Thursday night. His Progressive Conservative Party won 83 seats. The NDP won 31 seats, the Liberals won eight seats, the Greens won one seat and one went to an Independent.