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Opinion | Why you should vote in the municipal election, even if most people don’t
Voter turnout in Waterloo Region has sunk over the years, and that’s why Premier Doug Ford is able to take away our election rights, Luisa D’Amato writes.
Sept. 9, 2026
There’s a reason so few of us vote in municipal elections.
Without candidates belonging to political parties, it’s very difficult to know whom to support on Oct. 26. After all, who has time to research all these individuals?
And so, because it feels irresponsible to vote for (or not vote for) names that have no meaning to us, we hesitate to mark a ballot.
But hesitation is dangerous.
During the last municipal elections in 2022, only 24 per cent of Waterloo Region’s eligible voters cast a ballot. That’s down from 28 per cent in the previous elections in 2018.
In Kitchener, the region’s largest city, only one person in five — 20 per cent — voted in the 2022 municipal election.
This is the reason that Premier Doug Ford has been able to take away our right to vote for the regional chair, a position that will be appointed this year by the province, after decades of having been elected by local residents.
Ford knows there won’t be serious consequences for him for doing this, because not enough people care about their right to vote in the first place. That’s what 24 per cent turnout says to him.
He’s not wrong.
So it’s important to push back and not let this precious civic right slip through our fingers.
“It’s almost like democracy is dying with a whisper,” former regional councillor Rob Deutschmann said early in 2023, at a town hall meeting he hosted on low voter turnout.
Low turnout doesn’t just give opportunities for voting rights to be snipped. It also allows candidates from special interest groups, which have small but highly organized bands of supporters, to win office — and then impose their minority views on public resources.
For the rest of the article go to today’s Record or Luisa’s website
Luisa D'Amato is a Waterloo Region Record reporter and columnist. She writes on issues affecting day-to-day life in the area. She can be reached at ldamato@therecord.com.
Voter turnout in Waterloo Region has sunk over the years, and that’s why Premier Doug Ford is able to take away our election rights, Luisa D’Amato writes.
Sept. 9, 2026
There’s a reason so few of us vote in municipal elections.
Without candidates belonging to political parties, it’s very difficult to know whom to support on Oct. 26. After all, who has time to research all these individuals?
And so, because it feels irresponsible to vote for (or not vote for) names that have no meaning to us, we hesitate to mark a ballot.
But hesitation is dangerous.
During the last municipal elections in 2022, only 24 per cent of Waterloo Region’s eligible voters cast a ballot. That’s down from 28 per cent in the previous elections in 2018.
In Kitchener, the region’s largest city, only one person in five — 20 per cent — voted in the 2022 municipal election.
This is the reason that Premier Doug Ford has been able to take away our right to vote for the regional chair, a position that will be appointed this year by the province, after decades of having been elected by local residents.
Ford knows there won’t be serious consequences for him for doing this, because not enough people care about their right to vote in the first place. That’s what 24 per cent turnout says to him.
He’s not wrong.
So it’s important to push back and not let this precious civic right slip through our fingers.
“It’s almost like democracy is dying with a whisper,” former regional councillor Rob Deutschmann said early in 2023, at a town hall meeting he hosted on low voter turnout.
Low turnout doesn’t just give opportunities for voting rights to be snipped. It also allows candidates from special interest groups, which have small but highly organized bands of supporters, to win office — and then impose their minority views on public resources.
For the rest of the article go to today’s Record or Luisa’s website
Luisa D'Amato is a Waterloo Region Record reporter and columnist. She writes on issues affecting day-to-day life in the area. She can be reached at ldamato@therecord.com.
