THUNDER BAY — The City of Thunder Bay is asking voters to share their thoughts on how the 2022 municipal election was conducted.
Of note, it wants to hear not only from people who voted, but particularly from those who didn't participate.
The turnout this year was less than 43 per cent, down almost eight percent from the 2018 election but still better than the Ontario average of about 36 per cent.
City Clerk Krista Power admitted to being disappointed with the participation rate, saying she felt she and her staff had developed "a really robust campaign to encourage the vote."
In what it described as an effort to help improve the administration of future elections, the city issued a notice Wednesday inviting "voters and stakeholders" to fill out a short online survey.
Power said the city decided to seek voter feedback as soon as possible after the election because of the decreased turnout.
The survey includes five questions:
- Did you vote in the municipal and school board election?
- Did you receive a Voter Information Letter?
- Did you call the help line, 622-VOTE, during the election period?
- Did you see or hear any Thunder Bay Votes promotion leading up to the election?
- Are there other methods of voting you would like the City to consider in the next municipal election in 2026?
On social media after the election, some voters complained that they had not received Voter Information Letters.
Power said Wednesday that the voters list has been a concern for many years.
"It's one of the reasons we did all the promotion in September, to remind people that the provincial voters' list and the municipal list are not the same, and if they moved or anything else has changed since 2018, they may not be on our list."
The clerk's office conducted a public information campaign about a month in advance of voter letters going out, to try to get people to check to ensure they were on the list.
"It is the responsibility of the voter. If you didn't receive a Voter Information Letter, we could have quickly gotten that to you, and we did get quite a few phone calls to our voter help line. We made more than 1,000 changes to the voters' list in the first week of those letters going out," Power said.
A change is coming for the 2026 election, however, as the province has decided municipalities will use the Elections Ontario list, which may result in fewer omissions.
But Power emphasized that the city is interested in feedback from anyone who didn't vote in the recent election, no matter what the reason.
"We're looking to know if there are barriers. We worked really hard to try to remove any barriers by providing the transit pass, the drive-through option, the internet ballot and the in-person voting locations."
She added that despite those efforts, she recognizes that voters may have other opinions, "and we'd love to hear what they have to say."
The online survey is available until Nov. 10.
