The level of voter participation in Calgary local elections may be chronically lower than in federal or provincial races, but there have been some truly stinking turnout numbers in the city’s modern history.
In 2004, when incumbent Mayor Dave Bronconnier ran against a low-profile group highlighted by a notorious political gadflyonly 19.8 percent of eligible voters bothered to show up. Turnout dropped to 23.4 percent when Al Duerr won re-election in 1995, garnering more than 100,000 votes, while no one else garnered more than 3,000.
There is widespread concern about declining turnout as Mayor Jyoti Gondek also seeks a second term. But unlike those past examples, polls suggest this is nothing like a cakewalk for Calgary’s first female mayor; In fact, she is in an apparent fight to keep her position against several experienced competitors and to avoid becoming the first city leader to be ousted since 1980.
Is it about the candidates in 2025? The complexity of this new party system? The diverted attention of the public? Is it all of the above that has many Calgarians with a none of the above mentality?
Lori Williams warned the audience at a mayoral debate earlier this month: “Every vote can really make a difference, and it seems like people are still not as invested in this election as they would like.”
Joey Oberhoffner, a civic commentator who chaired a District 10 Forum in Marlborough on Tuesday, said participatory democracy only works when people actually participate. “When voter turnout in municipal elections is so low, each informed vote is worth two or three.”
A first indicator has emerged indicating that participation, in fact, will be decidedly terrestrial. These are the anticipated voter numbers for Calgary Elections.
The advanced withdrawal
Levels more than tripled between 2013 and 2017, then doubled again in 2021, as residents became increasingly aware of the desirability of avoiding lines on Election Day.
Early voting in this contest has shown that this trend is being decisively reversed. The number of early voters is down about a third compared to 2021, despite substantial population growth since the last election.
This means that while about 17 per cent of eligible Calgarians had already voted on Election Day last time, less than 11 per cent have done so this round.
The latest Janet Brown Opinion Research poll shows a near tie for the lead between Jeromy Farkas (27 percent), Gondek (23) and Sonya Sharp (23). That, along with a large number of “undecided” voters, could make this race an exciting fire that attracts the passions of the population. correct?
Brown, however, is surprised by how high the number of unsure voters is, given that he was still surveying Calgarians less than two weeks before voting day on Oct. 20.
She evaluates it as indecision mixed with inattention. There’s a lot more out there that captures people’s political eyes and ears, from U.S. President Donald Trump’s constant turns south of the border, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, all the headlines being generated by Premier Danielle Smith and Premier Mark Carney, and the disruptive and dramatic nature of the Alberta teachers’ strike.
“It’s not attracting much attention, and among those who are paying attention to it, there aren’t many who are fully engaged,” Brown said in an interview.
Brown asked the 1,000 online respondents not only which mayoral candidate they would vote for, but also who they had heard of and who they would consider voting for.
Of those, 30 percent of respondents said they do not know who the candidates are or would not consider voting for any of them. Most of it is in the latter field.
And here’s a figure that indicates how unappetizing people find this menu of options. More people say they are not interested in supporting any of the contenders than actually intend to vote for any of them in particular.
“I think this portends very low voter turnout,” Brown said.
Party down
The new party system has upset voters and appears to have added more confusion to civic voting, said Williams, a political studies professor at Mount Royal University.
While Premier Danielle Smith introduced the parties with the expectation that they would bring political clarity to the Calgary and Edmonton elections, Williams said the parties and candidates have not tended to define clear positions for voters.
“The proposals seem to be evasive or talk about consultations without giving really clear options,” he told CBC News.
“If it’s going to take more work to figure out who the candidates are, what they represent, what parties they’re going to do, I think that complexity seems daunting.”
Williams lives in District 13, which has a two-way council race between a Communities First incumbent and a Calgary Party challenger. There are almost no signs on the lawn, he said.
In some suburban neighborhoods there appear to be almost as many signs about the teachers’ strike as about any municipal candidate.
Let’s add that other strike, the one that stopped the Canada Post service.
It has hampered the city’s attempts to send out voter information cards, changed the mail-in voting system and caused candidates to look for a different way to get their brochures to residents.
And activists express frustration with spreading information digitally, with the social media world now scattered between Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Tiktok and…
It has long been said that Thanksgiving could be a turning point in Alberta’s civic elections.
Former Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s team has said that family arguments in 2010 helped tilt the race in his direction, as committed fans persuaded their aunts, cousins and friends to take a chance on the relative unknown.
But how much discussion will Gondek and Farkas and Sharp generate, police tiers and rowhouse zoning, when they compete for table time with the Blue Jays playoffs and oil pipelines and American troops in Chicago and hostages in Gaza and what they do with elementary school kids on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays?
One thousand Calgarians were surveyed via Trend Research’s online Panel between October 1 and 8, 2025, led by Janet Brown Opinion Research. The survey was commissioned by CBC Calgary. Quotas were established by age, sex and city quadrant. A minimum weight was applied to match Statistics Canada population data. As it is a non-probabilistic online survey, no margin of error is applied. However, the margin of error for a comparable probability sample would be +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 out of 20 times.
