Chatham-Kent voter turnout rebounds to 40.79%, up 10 points from 2022

Voter turnout in Chatham-Kent’s 2026 municipal election was 40.79%, more than 10 points higher than four years ago, according to unofficial results from all 32 tabulator locations.

36,703 of 89,987 eligible electors cast a ballot on or before Monday’s Election Day. That’s 12,157 more voters than in 2022, when turnout fell to 30.56%, and the most ballots cast in a Chatham-Kent municipal election since at least 2010.

Turnout still came in below 2018’s 45.44%. More people voted this year than in 2018, but the voters’ list has grown by more than 13,500 names since then.

Key facts

• Turnout: 40.79%, or 36,703 of 89,987 eligible electors
• Change from 2022: up 10.23 percentage points, with 49.5% more ballots cast
• Online voting: 12,313 ballots, about one in three
• Didn’t vote: 53,284 eligible electors, or 59.2%
• Declined or blank ballots: 44 declined and 26 left blank

Turnout in the last five elections

2026 figures are unofficial results from the Municipality’s results site. Earlier years are the Municipality’s official totals.

Back up from 2022

In 2022, fewer than a third of eligible electors voted, the lowest turnout of the five elections above. This year’s ballot count is almost half again as large.

It was also a crowded ballot. The mayor’s race had seven candidates, including the incumbent and two sitting councillors. Every council seat was contested, and Ward 7 alone had 17 candidates for two seats.

More voters, but a bigger list

This year’s 36,703 ballots beat 2018’s 34,722 by 1,981. But there were 89,987 eligible electors on this year’s list, up from 76,418 in 2018, a jump of 17.8%.

At 2018’s turnout rate, this year’s list would have produced about 40,900 ballots, roughly 4,200 more than were cast.

How people voted

About a third of voters, 12,313, voted online. The other 24,390 marked paper ballots that were counted on tabulators at advance polls and on Election Day.

Nearly every voter, 99.2%, marked a choice for mayor. Electors declined 44 ballots, formally refusing them to record that they chose not to vote, and returned 26 blank.

Who won

Michael Bondy was elected mayor with 15,818 votes, defeating incumbent Darrin Canniff. Read the full story on the election results, or see every race, ward by ward.

Sources

2026 turnout and ballot counts come from the Municipality of Chatham-Kent’s unofficial results site, chathamkent.enrs.ca, with all 32 locations reporting. The 2018 total is from the Municipality’s 2018 election summary. The 2022, 2014 and 2010 totals are from the Municipality’s official results release, with turnout rates matching those reported by the Chatham Voice.