By Jeff Labine

Prince Albert sees low voter turnout

Apr 22, 2017 | 8:00 AM

More than 50 per cent of eligible voters in Prince Albert didn’t cast a ballot during the last municipal election.

There are an estimated 26,802 eligible voters in the city but only 39 per cent exercised their civic duty last October. That’s roughly 10,233, according to a city report. The turnout was actually an increase from the previous election, which saw 29 per cent of the electorate cast a ballot.

Mayor Greg Dionne took home more than 40 per cent of the votes or to be exact 4,450. He said low voter turnouts aren’t an exclusive issue to Prince Albert.

“When you get a low turnout, lots of times people are satisfied with what’s going on,” he said. “I want to get more people out because I want the positive people to go out there and endorse you. Then you sort of have a platform to run on.”

He said he never judges an election based on the turnout because there’s a number of reasons why people aren’t able to cast their ballots. Following his victory on election night, Dionne said many people came up to him to congratulate him and told him they would have voted for him but couldn’t for whatever reason.

SIGA

SIGA and Northern Lights Casino main sponsors of the 31st PAGC Fine Arts Festival

4h ago

Workplace incident

City of Prince Albert pleads guilty to workplace safety violation, handed fines

6h ago

Lighting it up

P.A.'s Zablocki leads Regina to victory on Day 4 at Esso Cup

Apr 24, 2024

He called that dangerous because if all his supporters didn’t go out to vote, he wouldn’t get in.

“I certainly would like to see a bigger turnout,” he said. “But in some elections, that’s just the way it is.”

While the mayor took home the majority of votes, when compared to the actual number of eligible voters in Prince Albert, Dionne’s support is near 16 per cent.

Dionne added he would prefer to look at the actual number of votes cast.

“You can’t look at it that way,” he said. “If you look at it that way everyone below me got less than me. They got 10 per cent, eight per cent. You can’t look at that. You can’t take percentages out of character like that.”

Joe Garcea, a political science professor at the University of Saskatchewan, called Prince Albert’s turnout respectable compared to other cities. Bigger cities like Saskatoon and Regina are experiencing low voter turnouts as well, with some elections seeing rates in the 20s, he said.

He did point out that in smaller communities turnout tends to be higher.

Garcea believes a big reason for low turnouts is because people tend to be busier nowadays.

“I think in yesteryear people would look to elections almost as a social event where they could go and meet others in the community,” he said. “Now it is sort of a disruption and interruption with your ability to watch your favourite programs. Sometimes the problem can be weather and sometimes the problem can be line ups and parking.”

Some communities across the country are adopting online voting as an option to allow voters to cast their ballots in a more convenient way. Garcea wasn’t sure if online voting would increase the turnout but stressed the importance of keeping the traditional paper ballot for those who want it.

The next municipal election is in 2020.

Jeff.labine@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @labinereporter