Perhaps the most interesting aspect of a voting report released Monday by Greater Sudbury is the fact there are 14 people in the city who are between the ages of 105-114. None of them voted in the October municipal election.
The report took a deeper dive into the municipal election, specifically how the city ensured voting was accessible to people with disabilities.
“The City of Greater Sudbury’s clerk’s services department will continue to learn, develop, and adjust our approaches in order to meet the needs of persons with disabilities,” the report says. “The review of accessibility issues and initiatives and addressing barrier prevention and removal is an ongoing practice.”
One of the biggest barriers to voting – getting to the polling station – was removed, the report said, since online voting allowed anyone to cast a ballot from home.
“This allowed increased rights of privacy to electors with disabilities who may find voting at traditional paper based voting locations more difficult, as they had the ability to vote with little or no assistance required from others,” the report said.
While outlining other measures taken to make voting accessible, the report also included a range of demographic and other detail about October's election:
- A total of 52,087 ballots were cast, a turnout of 45 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 37.61 per cent;
- In all, 81.79 per cent of ballots were cast online, or 42,602 of the total.
- As well, 2,588 votes were cast at voter help centres, 133 on the election bus, 714 at LTC homes and 6,050 on the actual voting day at voter help locations.
- The demographic with the highest turnout were people ages 65-74 – more than 63 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots. They were followed by people 75-84 (60.04 per cent), 55-64 (55.97 per cent) and 45-54 (46.32 per cent).
- The lowest turnout, as mentioned, were people age 105 or older (zero per cent), followed by ages 95-104 (25.06 per cent) and 18-24 (26.45 per cent).
- Ward by ward, the highest turnout was in Ward 9 (50.44 per cent), followed by Ward 8 (48.62 per cent). The lowest was Ward 3 (38.07 per cent) and Ward 12 (39.12 per cent).
