As it turns out, Mississauga’s contentious mayoral race was just the tonic needed to spark greater interest among voters.

A 2026 mayoral contest featuring fierce political rivals Carolyn Parrish, the incumbent, and her predecessor Bonnie Crombie helped draw considerably more eligible voters to the polls than turned out in the 2022 Mississauga municipal election.

Add to the mix one-term city councillor (and now mayor-elect) Alvin Tedjo who, among other candidates, took on Parrish in the 2024 byelection to succeed a Queen’s Park-bound Crombie, and a recipe for even stronger voter participation came together.

Dipika Damerla, on her way out as Mississauga Ward 7 councillor after finishing a distant fourth in Monday’s mayoral contest, rounded out the roster of four high-profile candidates who helped get the votes out.

The City of Mississauga said late Monday night that 33.9 per cent of eligible voters (191,166 voters) cast ballots to elect the mayor, 11 city councillors and a slate of school board trustees.

That’s up dramatically from the 2022 municipal election in Mississauga when 21.8 per cent (107,310 voters), among the lowest participation rates in Ontario (see chart below), took part in the process.

Mississauga’s 2018 municipal election brought 26.5 per cent of eligible voters out while the city’s 2024 mayoral byelection, by further comparison, drew 25.7 per cent.

In 2014, when Crombie took the mayoral reins from the retiring Hazel McCallion, 36.6 per cent of Mississauga voters took part in the election.

Among 15 other municipalities chosen by the City of Mississauga for comparison of 2022 voter engagement (see chart below), only Kitchener at 20.3 per cent had a lower voter turnout than Mississauga.

Brampton, Mississauga’s partner in Peel, registered a 24.6 per cent turnout in 2022 while Caledon, the other member of Peel, had 31.7 per cent of registered voters participate.

Elsewhere, Toronto was at 29 per cent, Oakville 28.3 per cent, Hamilton 35.4 per cent and Ottawa 43.8 per cent.

(Source: City of Mississauga Municipal Election Information corporate report, September 2023)

This election season, the City of Mississauga said a record 44,049 advance votes were cast during the six days of early voting Oct. 6-11. That number set a new all-time mark for the city and represents a 57 per cent increase compared to advance voting in the 2022 municipal election.

Voters in Canada’s seventh-largest city cast 28,052 early ballots four years ago and 19,188 in the weeks prior to the 2018 municipal election, according to numbers provided by the City of Mississauga.

During the 2024 mayoral byelection in Mississauga, 24,731 people went to the polls early.


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