Snap election, voting system, dishonesty, lack of key democratic reform promises and measures, and failure of Elections Ontario to inform voters of real reasons to vote and how to decline their ballot, are likely reasons for second lowest turnout in the province’s history
Honesty law, representative voting system, key democratic good government reforms, fixing election dates, and effective ads by Elections Ontario will increase voter turnout – mandatory voting and Internet voting are not solutions and are dangerously undemocratic
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, February 28, 2025
TORONTO – Today, Democracy Watch called for democratic changes to Ontario’s political system in response to the clear crisis of low voter turnout in the provincial election. Initial results show that the PC Party won a majority of 80 of 124 seats (three fewer than in 2022) with the support of only 19.5% of eligible voters, which raises serious questions about their mandate to govern, let alone to implement any specific law or policy.
The voting results were very unrepresentative for most of the main parties. Only 45.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot, the second lowest turnout ever, and only 43% of the ballots cast were for the PC Party but they won almost 65% (80) of the seats in the legislature. The Liberals won 30% of the votes but only 11% (14) of the seats, and the Greens won 4.8% of the votes but only 1.6% (2) of the seats. The NDP’s vote percentage of 18.6% was closer to the 22% (27) of seats they won, but still unrepresentative.
“With less than half of eligible voters casting ballots in the Ontario election, the second lowest turnout ever, and a distorted false majority, alarm bells should be going off and questions raised about the legitimacy of Doug Ford’s PC Party government which wasted almost $200 million of the public’s money on his self-interested, mid-winter snap election,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “More and more voters know from their experience of the past few decades of elections, and from Ford’s term in office, that they are not going to get what they vote for, and are likely to get dishonest, secretive, unethical, unrepresentative and wasteful government, and as a result no one should be surprised to see voter turnout at such a low level.”
“Voter turnout will go up significantly only if the voting system is changed, if the parties make changes to require everyone in politics to be honest, ethical, open and waste-preventing, and if Elections Ontario does its job properly and informs Ontarians of the real reasons to vote and their right to decline their ballot,” said Conacher.
Ontario’s parties must work together to make the following changes if they want to increase voter turnout up to the past modern high of 65% (in 1990) let alone 73% (in 1971):
1. Pass an honesty-in-politics law that gives voters an easy, low-cost way to file complaints to the Integrity Commissioner, and requires the Commissioner the power to penalize misleaders (and requires MPPs who switch parties in-between elections to resign and run in a by-election).
2. Change the voting system to provide a more accurate representation of the popular vote in the seats held by each party in the legislature (as in many other countries) while ensuring that all elected officials are supported by, and are accountable to, voters in each riding/constituency (with a safeguard to ensure that a party with a low-level, narrow-base of support does not have a disproportionately high level of power in the legislature).
3. Strengthen provincial political ethics, lobbying, open government, whistleblower protection, and government spending and accountability laws and penalties, and democratize Ontario’s legalized bribery political finance system (the Green Party received only a C as the best grade of overall bad grades in DWatch’s Report Card on the Parties’ Democracy and Accountability Platforms, while Ford’s PC Party received a F).
4. Actually fix election dates every four years, to prohibit self-interested snap elections, and only allow elections in between the four-year period if a vote of non-confidence in the government is passed by the legislature, and make the election campaign period at least six weeks to give late-nominated candidates time to campaign, parties time to finalize and release platforms, Elections Ontario time to educate voters and set up operations, and voters time to get registered, learn platforms and question candidates and parties.
5. Mandate Elections Ontario to spend the $6 million or so it spends each election on voter education on effective ads that include the following two key messages – the real reasons to vote which DWatch’s partner organization Democracy Education Network includes in its VoteParty.ca and VotePromise.ca voter turnout initiatives:
• “You never know when your vote may count” — with examples from past elections, and from specific ridings in various elections, which show clearly that election results cannot be predicted in advance, and;
• “If you don’t vote, you don’t count” — making it clear that politicians don’t really care about you if you don’t vote because non-voters do not help them get elected or defeated.
6. Instead of having the right to decline your ballot (which Ontarians and voters in three other provinces have, but it has to be done verbally which violates the right to a secret ballot), voters should have the right to vote “none of the above” and to give a reason on election and by-election ballots (as was recommended 25 years ago by Elections Canada).
As well, Elections Ontario again violated the provincial election law by failing to inform voters about their right to decline the ballot, and failing to include the total of declined ballots in its election results report.
These changes would give voters many more reasons to vote because they would know that voting for a specific party would mean their vote would count, and the party’s promises would be kept, and they would be more assured of democratic good government overall no matter which party won. As well, moving the fixed election date to the last Monday in October would make it easier for people with kids, and students, to follow and participate in the election campaign and have the identification needed to vote.
These problems exist in all the provinces and territories across Canada. All of these changes should be made by the federal and provincial and territorial governments, and for their municipalities, before mandatory voting is even considered because forcing voters to vote creates false legitimacy for political parties and politicians (and mandatory voting must never be implemented unless “none of the above” is one of the options on the ballot). Internet voting should also not even be considered currently given it would dangerously undermine the integrity of the voting system.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]
Democracy Watch’s Democratic Voting Systems Campaign