Advance Turnout for Toronto Mayoral Vote up Almost 12 Percent From Last Election

Nathan Phillips Square and Toronto City Hall in Toronto on April 23 2020. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)

The six-day advance voting period for what is shaping up to be a record-setting by-election for a new mayor in Toronto has just come to an end, with almost 12 percent more advance voters going to the polls than in the last election in October 2022.

Advance polls closed at the end of the day on June 13, and according to a Toronto City news release, 129,745 eligible voters cast their ballots. The actual election day is June 26, when voters will have a choice between a record-setting 102 candidates. It only takes 25 signatures for a candidate to be placed on the ballot for mayor.

“This is the highest number of candidates ever registered for mayor of the amalgamated City of Toronto, surpassing the previous record of 65 candidates in the 2014 municipal election. There were 31 certified candidates for mayor of Toronto in the 2022 municipal election,” the city said in a May 12 news release.

Toronto has a population of more than 3 million people, with an estimated nearly 2 million eligible voters, and is the fourth largest city in North America. The last day of advance voting, June 13, saw 38,621 voters go to a polling station, which the city said was the highest single day of advance voting since Toronto’s six separate municipalities amalgamated on Jan. 1, 1998.

This election saw voters able to cast their ballots at one of 50 advance voting locations in the city, also a historic option unique to this by-election, because there was only one race for the mayor’s seat. The former mayor, John Tory, resigned in February, just four months after being reelected, after it was publicized that he had an extramarital affair with a former member of his staff.

John Beebe, founder of the Democracy Engagement Exchange at Toronto Metropolitan University—which encourages Canadians to vote—said the election readiness handbook prepared by the organization sold out.

“We’re very excited because we see that level of excitement. Whether the candidates have really lit people on fire, that’s what we’re going to have to wait and see,” he told Global News on June 13.

Electoral Reform

Beebe was also critical of Toronto’s first-past-the-post system for winning the election.

“It’s the worst possible system to choose a mayor. And this is definitely a case study in why we need to change our election procedures,” Beebe said.

Regardless of the share of overall ballots cast, the candidate with the most votes wins. With 102 candidates on the ballot, the next mayor could take the win with less than one-third of the popular vote, and will also enter office with “strong mayor” powers.

These new powers granted by the provincial government allow a mayor to pass a budget with the support of just one-third of council. The powers can also be used to veto bylaws and form the upper administration of the city.

Some cities use a ranked ballot to determine the mayor, where each round eliminates the candidate with the fewest number of votes, with the next ranked choice on the ballot getting those votes by attrition.

Ontario changed the law in 2016 to allow a ranked ballot election, but in 2020, Doug Ford reversed that policy and changed the law back so that municipal candidates were elected the same way as provincial and federal representatives.

The latest poll conducted by Liaison Strategies, according to CP24 on June 13, has Olivia Chow leading the race with 34 percent of decided voters, with Mark Saunders trailing behind at 15 percent support. In third and fourth place respectively, polls have Josh Matlow at 12 percent and Ana Bailao at 10 percent, followed by a tie between Anthony Furey and Mitzie Hunter at 9 percent.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.