Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums

Voter Turnout Over Time

Presenting the figures below involves several challenges. The data contained in official election results since Confederation have not been reported consistently. In the case of an election by acclamation, for instance, the number of registered electors on the lists for that electoral district was included in the total number of registered electors for some elections, but not for others. In other cases, lists of electors were not prepared for some districts. In Prince Edward Island, no lists were prepared in the entire province for several elections.

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Moreover, a number of electoral districts were dual-member constituencies until 1966. As each elector could vote for more than one candidate, the reported number of votes cast (valid and rejected ballots) was higher than it would have been in a single-member scenario. Voter turnout figures have been corrected where appropriate: to estimate turnout in these cases, the total number of votes cast in a plural-member electoral district was divided by the number of members elected from that district (see Scarrow 1962).

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Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums
Date of election/ referendum	Population^{footnote 6}	Number of Electors on lists	Total ballots cast	Voter turnout (%)
7 August - 20 September 1867^{footnote 1}	3,230,000	361,028	268,387	73.1
20 July - 12 October 1872	3,689,000	426,974	318,329	70.3
22 January 1874	3,689,000	432,410	324,006	69.6
17 September 1878	3,689,000	715,279	534,029	69.1
20 June 1882	4,325,000	663,873	508,496	70.3
22 February 1887	4,325,000	948,222	724,517	70.1
5 March 1891	4,833,000	1,113,140	778,495	64.4
23 June 1896	4,833,000	1,358,328	912,992	62.9
29 September 1898^{footnote 2}	4,833,000	1,236,419	551,405	44.6
7 November 1900	4,833,000	1,167,402	958,497	77.4
3 November 1904	5,371,000	1,385,440	1,036,878	71.6
26 October 1908	5,371,000	1,463,591	1,180,820	70.3
21 September 1911	7,204,527	1,820,742	1,314,953	70.2
17 December 1917	7,591,971	2,093,799	1,892,741	75.0
6 December 1921	8,760,211	4,435,310	3,139,306	67.7
29 October 1925	8,776,352	4,608,636	3,168,412	66.4
14 September 1926	8,887,952	4,665,381	3,273,062	67.7
28 July 1930	8,887,952	5,153,971	3,922,481	73.5
14 October 1935	10,367,063	5,918,207	4,452,675	74.2
26 March 1940	10,429,169	6,588,888	4,672,531	69.9
27 April 1942^{footnote 2}	11,494,627	6,502,234	4,638,847	71.3
11 June 1945	11,494,627	6,952,445	5,305,193	75.3
27 June 1949	11,823,649	7,893,629	5,903,572	73.8
10 August 1953	14,003,704	8,401,691	5,701,963	67.5
10 June 1957	16,073,970	8,902,125	6,680,690	74.1
31 March 1958	16,073,970	9,131,200	7,357,139	79.4
18 June 1962	18,238,247	9,700,325	7,772,656	79.0
8 April 1963	18,238,247	9,910,757	7,958,636	79.2
8 November 1965	18,238,247	10,274,904	7,796,728	74.8
25 June 1968	20,014,880	10,860,888	8,217,916	75.7
30 October 1972	21,568,311	13,000,778	9,974,661	76.7
8 July 1974	21,568,311	13,620,353	9,671,002	71.0
22 May 1979	22,992,604	15,233,653	11,541,000	75.7
18 February 1980	22,992,604	15,890,416	11,015,514	69.3
4 September 1984	24,343,181	16,774,941	12,638,424	75.3
21 November 1988	25,309,331	17,639,001	13,281,191	75.3
26 October 1992^{footnote 2} ^{footnote 3}	20,400,896	13,725,966	9,855,978	71.8
25 October 1993	27,296,859	19,906,796	13,863,135	69.6^{footnote 4}
2 June 1997	27,296,859	19,663,478	13,174,698	67.0
27 November 2000	28,846,761	21,243,473	12,997,185	61.2^{footnote 5}
28 June 2004	30,007,094	22,466,621	13,683,570	60.9
23 January 2006	30,007,094	23,054,615	14,908,703	64.7
14 October 2008	31,612,897	23,677,639	13,929,093	58.8
2 May 2011	33,476,688	24,257,592	14,823,408	61.1
19 October 2015	33,476,688	25,939,742	17,711,983	68.3
21 October 2019	35,151,728	27,373,058	18,350,359	67.0
20 September 2021	35,151,728	27,509,496	17,209,811	62.6

Footnotes

Return to source of ¹ In early elections, polling took place over several weeks or even months.

Return to source of ² A referendum.

Return to source of ³ Does not include Quebec, as Quebec conducted its own referendum.

Return to source of ⁴ This percentage rises to 70.9 when the number of electors on the lists is adjusted to account for electors who had moved or died between the enumeration for the 1992 referendum and the election of 1993, for which a separate enumeration was not carried out except in Quebec, as the 1992 electoral lists were reused.

Return to source of ⁵ The turnout of 61.2% in 2000 was adjusted to arrive at the final turnout of 64.1%, after our normal maintenance of the National Register of Electors to remove the names of deceased electors and duplicates arising from moves. The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada explained the adjustment during his appearance before the Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment on October 6, 2003, and his appearance to discuss the 2004 Main Estimates before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on March 5, 2004.

Return to source of ⁶ Population is based on Statistics Canada census data available to Elections Canada at the time of publishing.

Source: Reports of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery (1867-1917); reports of the Chief Electoral Officer (1921-2008); Official Voting Results (2011-2019); unpublished summary data prepared by Elections Canada; R. Pomfret, The Economic Development of Canada (1987); H.A. Scarrow, Canada Votes (1962); Contact (1985).