Municipal elections get notoriously bad turnouts, but a few areas of the Lakeland saw the trend head in the right direction.
Cold Lake saw only sixteen percent of eligible voters cast a ballot earlier this month, but that was actually a significant increase over the last election, when only eleven percent of voters did so. Overall, 1,814 of 11,170 eligible voters decided who would sit on council for the next four years. While previous elections have seen much higher turnouts usually around the 25 percent mark, CAO Kevin Nagoya says the lower numbers as of late probably have to do with there being no race for mayor.
The MD of Bonnyville’s numbers would back up that theory. With Barry Kalinski and Gary Sawchuk running for reeve, 37 percent of the MD that could vote did. Last election came in around 23 percent for comparison.
However, several municipalities more or less stayed the same. The town of Bonnyville saw 923 ballots cast, for 18.6 percent of the voting age population; a negligible drop from 19 percent last go around. Glendon meanwhile held steady as well with around 40 percent turnout.
