In the City of Dauphin, the 2027 Manitoba Municipal Election went exceptionally well, in all senses of the word.
From how smooth the process went on the backend, to the number of voters that showed up, Deputy City Manager Lisa Gaudet said everything went off without a hitch.
"So we had 6,089 eligible voters on the voters list this year, and we had a total of 1,979 accepted ballots throughout the election process, so that includes advance voting, sealed envelope voting, and voting on election day. So that gives us a 32.5% voter turnout...for comparison, in the 2022 Municipal Election, we had a voter turnout of about 44.6%," said Gaudet.
Though the voter turnout percentage was down from last election, there are a lot of factors that could have influenced that - the most notable being the difference in the number of candidates. In 2022, there were 17 candidates running for the 6 council spots, whereas this year, there were only 10.
Gaudet said one of the most overlooked fact about election planning is how long it takes. She said it was good to see their months of careful, detailed planning pay off.
"Election Day is really just a culmination of months of work that takes place behind the scenes, and there's a tremendous number of details to manage, and our election planning team did an outstanding job, and we didn't experience any issues that prevented residents from exercising their right to vote," said Gaudet.
Gaudet wants to thank all of her staff and volunteers for making sure the process went as well as it did. One of the most instrumental parts of any election is the Senior Election Official - for the City of Dauphin, that was Kirk Dawson.
"Kirk [Dawson] brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience to the role, and his leadership, and his organization, and his attention to detail were so invaluable throughout the entire process," said Gaudet.
Now the election is over, all the materials head back into storage to start collecting dust. But in 4 more years, the City of Dauphin will be ready to do it all over again, just as good as this year.
