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Voter turnout fails to reach historic 50 per cent

The city failed to deliver a knockout punch to voter apathy Monday night as only 46 per cent of eligible voters decided to cast a ballot in the municipal election. Monday night’s turnout is an improvement from the 38.
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City of Thunder Bay's City Clerk John Hannam. (Jeff Labine, tbnewswatch.com)
The city failed to deliver a knockout punch to voter apathy Monday night as only 46 per cent of eligible voters decided to cast a ballot in the municipal election.

Monday night’s turnout is an improvement from the 38.5 per cent participation during the 2006 municipal election. Despite the improvement, City Clerk John Hannam said he hoped numbers would have been closer to the city’s historical average of 50 per cent.

"It’s slightly better than it was in 2006 but it certainly wasn’t what we were hoping for," Hannam said Monday night as numbers from the final polling stations were released. "My gut feeling tells me that the youth voter turnout was probably low.
"Given that our voter turnout was rather low and is certainly below 50 per cent, I don’t expect any particular category to be out shone."

He added that he wouldn’t be able to breakdown the age groups until city officials had a chance to analyze the voters’ list, which would take at least a day or two.

Despite advanced polling and the mobile van some residents lined up at polling stations at the last minute, pushing the voting deadline back by a half-hour or an hour at some polling stations. Hannam said these last minute voters caused a few delays at some polling stations, which included the West Thunder Community Centre and West Arthur Community Centre.

Traditionally voters come early and filter out by the end of the deadline. But this year more people were rushing to the polls at the last minute, which was a little unusual, he said.

"Maybe they were stopping to have dinner before heading to the polls," he said. "Usually we get to 7:30 p.m. or 7:45 p.m. and things kind of die out but I guess people were rushing to the polls at the last minute."






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