Regina election turnout one of worst in decades

The 2016 municipal election had one of the worst voter turnouts in recent history.

Only 20.4 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot. That means four out of five people in Regina didn’t vote.

Only a total of 36,656 people voted out of 179,645 people eligible.

“I think that there’s a combination of asking the public, asking the voters, asking candidates, the general public, what’s it going to take,” Chief Returning Officer Jim Nicol said.

Nicol feels his team did all it could to encourage people to vote. He argued that without a voters list, you can never guarantee the numbers. The City of Regina stopped keeping a voters list in 1985.

In the 2012 election, the voter turnout was 32.3 per cent.

The last time the voter turnout was so low was in 1978 where 19.8 per cent of eligible voters hit the polls.

The City of Regina publishes the voter turnout records.

1978: 19.8 per cent
1979: 48.4 per cent
1982: 49.6 per cent
1985: 51.7 per cent
1987: 41 per cent
1988: 56.9 per cent
1991: 43 per cent
1994: 39.4 per cent
1997: 25.7 per cent
2000: 38.3 per cent
2003: 24.9 per cent
2006: 36.5 per cent
2009: 25.0 per cent
2012: 32.3 per cent