Less than half of Ottawa electors cast a vote in the 2010 Ottawa city council election, a mere 44 percent. City council election turnout has declined 9 percent compared to the 2006 election when turnout was 53 percent.

The Rideau-Vanier ward had the lowest turnout at 39 percent, followed by the Gloucester-Southgate ward which had a turnout of 40 percent.

The next municipal election will be held October 27th, 2014.

Professor Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, who teaches political science at Queen’s University, said that municipal elections have to have low thresholds: “The bottom line is, people have to be elected. It is fair, we have to fill the positions, but is it ideal or desirable? No. That person has to govern the city council with an incomplete mandate. They haven’t heard from majority of the city.”

Rideau-Rockcliffe candidate Tobi Nussbaum said, “That could be a number of different factors, it could be a result of the fact that candidates didn’t do as much outreach and door knocking, that’s a possibility. I think there is a correlation between voting turnout and things like home ownership. It would be interesting to compare the voting record to what one would typically expect to a home owner versus rental split.”

The turnout for the Rideau-Rockcliffe ward was 42 percent. In Rideau-Rockcliffe, the percentage of homes rented is 52.6 percent compared to 47.4 percent who own. This correlation proved true in Rideau-Vanier, the ward with the lowest turnout, which has 72 percent rental homes compared to 28 percent owned.

There is another problem associated with turnout: municipal elections are not associated with political parties.

Due to the lack of party identification, Nussbaum said that what he tries to do is have a substantive policy campaign to ensure that he is engaging all the issues that are relevant to the residents of Rideau-Rockcliffe. He has knocked on over 12 000 doors since March.

“There really is no shortcuts, the wonderful thing about democracy is it really is about face to face, meeting one on one, meeting people, knocking on their door, introducing oneself, asking residents what their issues of concern are and listening and learning from that experience. So I’ve done that a lot and I think that’s really critical for a municipal candidate given as there isn’t a party structure behind us,” said Nussbaum.

Goodyear-Grant said that in Ottawa the information demands are higher.

In comparison to Toronto, Goodyear-Grant said candidates John Tory and Olivia Chow are known for their party work. “In that case, you will see high turnout; not because its important for one of the continent’s largest city and not because there has been a lot of media coverage around Ford. Most voters, to the extent that they understand left and right, they can figure out which candidate can stand for that.”

Goodyear-Grant said, “Municipal elections perennially have lower interest and lower stakes than provincial and federal level, but this can be farther from the truth. On things like foreign policy, we all have lots of opinions but these don’t tend to touch our lives.” Goodyear-Grant said, “All the bylaws and regulations, these impact our lives more than most things happening at the foreign level. Citizen’s perception to get involved is skewed, so there’s that problem.”