Toronto voter turnout bounces back as Olivia Chow becomes mayor
The 2023 mayoral by-election yielded over 150,000 votes more than the 2022 municipal election.
The dust has settled on the 2023 Toronto mayoral by-election, and Olivia Chow has been chosen as the city’s 66th mayor.
Chow received 269,372 votes, or 37.2 per cent of all votes cast. That bested her closest competitor, former Ward 9 Davenport city councillor Ana Bailão, by a comfortable margin of 34, 197 votes.
Facing a large budget deficit, multiple high-priority files, and a truncated ramp-up timeframe, Chow will take office on July 12.
“The work of changing a city left behind by decades of neglect is not going to be easy,” she said in a speech following her victory Monday night. “But I know we can make it happen by committing ourselves to each other and the city we love.”
Watching turnout
The biggest story after the 2022 municipal election was an apparent lack of civic engagement, as voter turnout hit an all-time low.
But this mayoral by-election marked a bounceback of sorts, yielding 161,514 more votes despite the lack of 25 individual council-seat races.
Election | Votes cast | % elig. voters |
---|---|---|
2023* | 724,638 | 38.54 |
2022 | 563,124 | 29.66 |
2018 | 769,044 | 40.90 |
2014 | 991,754 | 54.67 |
2010 | 827,723 | 50.55 |
2006 | 597,754 | 39.30 |
*Numbers not yet certified
As you can see above, the percentage of eligible voters jumped nearly 10 points from last October. That 38.54 per cent figure puts this by-election roughly on par with municipal elections in 2018 and 2006.
That said, turnout was still a far cry from high-water marks in 2010 and 2014, when over half of eligible voters cast a ballot.
This will no doubt continue to be a talking point in the lead-up to the next municipal election, which is little more than three years away.
Code and markup by Chris Dinn. ©Torontoverse, 2023