How did Tillsonburg fare with voter turnout?

Jeff Helsdon, Editor

Most post-election analyses examine voter turnout in various municipalities and sometimes raise the question of alternative voting methods.

In Tillsonburg, citizens could vote by Internet or phone, with the option of visiting the customer service centre if they needed assistance. This was the third election to use this voting method.

During the campaign, a few people mused online about the system's difficulty and called for in-person voting. Some candidates agreed, saying that if elected, they would revisit the concept.

The positive takeaway is that Tillsonburg’s voter turnout increased from the last election, just over two percentage points to 39.9 per cent. This surpasses the provincial average of 36 per cent voter turnout for the municipal election.

Tillsonburg Mayor-Elect Deb Gilvesy was encouraged by the turnout and the increase from 37.63 per cent in 2022.

“Tillsonburg was above the provincial average, and anything above 40 per cent is considered good,” she said.

A post-election analysis by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) found 66 per cent of municipalities used Internet voting in combination with another method, up from 52 per cent in 2022. At the same time, voter turnout increased by three per cent provincewide as compared to the last election.

Comparing Tillsonburg to Norwich, which had a contentious race for mayor, used paper ballots, and had a voter turnout of 42.9 per cent, it would be easy to conclude that more people vote when paper ballots are used. But it’s not that simple, as Aylmer, the area municipality with the highest voter turnout at 45.47 per cent, also used phone and Internet voting. Aylmer also had a mayoral race.

Near the bottom of local municipal voter turnout, Bayham had only 26.8 per cent and used paper ballots, with council turning down a staff recommendation to move to phone and Internet voting. Three were running for mayor in Bayham, so the low numbers weren’t due to lack of interest.

Ingersoll, which used vote-by-mail, had only 35.9 percent voter turnout.

Woodstock used both paper and Internet voting, with only 33.17 percent voter turnout. Norfolk County, which also used a combination of paper ballots and Internet voting, had a similar turnout of 33.01 per cent in a race with several people running for each position.

In South-West Oxford, only 26.76 per cent voted by phone and Internet, but the mayor was acclaimed. Using the same voting methods, Malahide Township, which also acclaimed its mayor, had 31.5 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots.

Other Oxford municipalities that used a combination of phone and Internet had turnouts of: East Zorra-Tavistock, 36.67 percent; Blanford-Blenheim, 37.73 percent; and Zorra, 37.59 percent.

By comparison, voter turnout in Oxford in the last provincial election was 49 percent, and 71.5 percent in 2025. The last federal election was higher than normal, with national voter turnout generally around 60 per cent since 1993, and higher than that historically. Province-wide averages for provincial elections were also historically higher, in the 60 to 70 per cent range until the 1960s, when averages fell into the 50 to 60 percent range.

Gilvesy said council will have the opportunity to revisit voting methods before the next election.