Information for Voters

Overview

What is this all about?

Municipal elections will be held in Ontario on October 26, 2026. Voters will elect representatives for three levels of government:

Regional government (Regional Councillors)
Municipal governments (Mayors and Ward Councillors)
School boards (Trustees)

There is an easy to understand voter’s guide for the Ontario municipal election published by the province. The link to the guide PDF is here: Ontario 2026 Voters’ Guide .

There is an easier to understand summary published by settlement.org.

Help! I am overwhelmed! Where do I start?

Read the Choosing Candidates, Step by Step page for step-by-step guidance on how to research candidates to vote for.

Why should I vote in municipal elections?

Your municipal government is responsible for many of the services that directly impact your daily life. We’ve put together a separate page with information to explain the roles and responsibilities of the different positions.

Here are some reasons to care about voting in municipal elections:

They give you input into who is making decisions about how your township or city functions.
Very few votes can make a huge difference in municipal elections. Many positions are decided by fewer than a hundred votes. In the 2010 election the Kitchener Ward 9 councillor won by 1 vote, and the Cambridge Ward 6 councillor won by 2 votes.
Democracy is hard-fought and easily lost.
Municipal politics affects your life more directly than many other forms of government.

For the 2018 election, the Region of Waterloo created a series of videos in which local voters explained their reasons to vote.

What makes municipal elections so overwhelming?

In provincial and federal elections, you effectively have to make one decision: how to cast one vote in one local riding. You can do this by selecting the party leader you like, or the party you like, or the local candidate you like best. The parties publish policy statements and there is lots of provincial and national news coverage.

Muncipal elections are more complicated, because you have to make more decisions:

There are many different positions to vote for (mayors, school board trustees, local councillors…)
Candidates do not run in parties
There are often many more candidates running for a position than there would be running for MP or MPP
There are no party leaders
Municipal issues usually make the news less than provincial and national issues
News about municipal elections is more scattered and difficult to find (which is the problem this website is trying to solve!)

Although municipal elections are more complicated than federal and provincial ones, they are manageable if you break them down step by step.

Voter Eligibility

Am I permitted to vote?

You may vote if you are a Canadian citizen who resides in Waterloo Region, owns property here, or has a spouse who owns property here. You must also be on the voter’s list.

There are some exceptions to these guidelines that may prohibit you from voting. There are also situations where you may vote in more than one municipal election. For details, read the Ontario 2026 Voters’ Guide .

How do I register to vote?

Elections Ontario maintains an online tool for checking your voter registration at the Register to Vote website. This is the place to start. You can also update your voter information at that site. Alternatively, the website offers a paper application form that you can mail in.

In order to amend your information on the voters’ list you will have to provide appropriate voter identification.

The Register To Vote website also allows you to add yourself to the Register of Absentee Voters. If you are 16 or 17 you can add yourself to the Register of Future Voters.

You can use the Register to Vote website until August 12. After this, your local municipality (city or township) gets the voter lists, and you must update your voter list information there.

If you have registered to vote in time you will likely receive a voter card in the mail, but you may vote even if you do not receive this card in time.

For further information from the municipalities, refer to their voting information pages:

I voted provincially. Am I registered to vote?

Elections Ontario maintains the voter list for both the Provincial and Municipal elections, so it is possible you are already registered to vote based on your registration for the Provincial election. You can check on the Register to Vote website to check.

I am a student. Do I get to vote?

Yes. Depending on where your home address is and whether you are returning back home after your studies, you may be eligible to vote twice! See the province’s Ontario 2026 Voters’ Guide for details.

I am homeless or have no fixed address. Do I get to vote?

Yes. Your voting address is considered to be the place where you ate or slept most frequently during the last five weeks.

About Voting

How do I vote? May I vote using the Internet?

This depends on the township or city in which you live. Different municipalities have different procedures. You can read full details on the website for your city or township, linked below.

Cambridge: In-person and online voting. There is also an at-home voting program people can apply for. Advanced voting are on Sept 26, Oct 6 to Oct 10, and Oct 17.
Kitchener: In-person voting only. Advanced voting days are Oct 13 through Oct 17 at various locations.
North Dumfries: In-person and online voting. Details are to be announced.
Waterloo: In-person voting only. Advanced voting days are Oct 10 and Oct 16 through Oct 18.
Wellesley: Online and telephone voting early. Voting period from Oct 16 through Oct 26.
Wilmot: In-person voting on Oct 26, online voting from Oct 16 through Oct 26.
Woolwich: In-person voting on Oct 17, Oct 18 and Oct 26. Online voting from Oct 16 through Oct 26.

Do I need a voter card to vote? Do I need identification?

If your township or city allows voting in person then you do not need a voter card. If your township or city allows only Internet and telephone voting then you will need a PIN, which is ordinarily mailed to you.

In general you need to bring identification with you in order to vote. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing publishes a list of acceptable documents for voter identification.

If you do not have identification you may still vote, but you must be registered on the voter’s list and you must sign a declaration of your identity. See the voters’ and identification section of the 2026 Voters’ Guide for more information.

There are a lot of positions to vote for! Do I have to vote for all of them?

No. You may refrain from voting for some positions if you wish; your vote will count for the positions you did vote for.

Similarly, if a position elects more than one representative (for example, there are four Kitchener Regional Council representatives) then you are not obligated to cast four votes for that position.

What are all the different positions for? What do these people do?

See our Municipal Government Overview for an explanation of the different positions and their responsibilities.

Why are there four different school boards listed? Which do I vote for?

Everybody who is eligible to vote is assigned to a school board. By default this is the English public school board (WRDSB).

For more information, see our page containing information about school board elections.

How do I follow what is going on during the election?

Local media provides lots of election coverage. Here are a few hubs:

On social media you can track #wrvotes and #wrpoli hashtags.

What parties are running in this election?

Unlike provincial or federal politics, municipal candidates in our municipality do not run under party banners.

This has the advantage of potentially reducing partisanship, but it means that candidates must be evaluated on their individual merits.

Getting More Involved

How high is voter turnout in municipal elections?

Voter turnout tends to be significantly lower than for provincial or federal elections.

For the 2022 election, the Region of Waterloo published results indicating that overall turnout was 25.3%, ranging from a low of 18.5% in North Dumfries to a high of 40.4% in Wilmot.

For the 2018 election, the Region of Waterloo published results indicating that the overall turnout was 30.8%, ranging from a low of 27.1% in Kitchener to a high of 37.8% in Wilmot.

For the 2014 election, the Region of Waterloo published results indicating that overall turnout was 31%, ranging from a low of 29.7% in Cambridge to a high of 40.5% in Wilmot.

Voter turnout in provincial and federal elections tends to be much higher. Overall turnout for the 2025 federal election was 69.5% and in the 2025 Ontario provincial election was 45%.

I want to organize an all-candidates meeting. What do I do?

We have advice for organizing all-candidates meetings and candidate questionnaires on the Information for Organizations page.

What other groups are working on election education?

The Region of Waterloo links to election information for the different municipalities at https://wrvotes.com .

The group Cambridge Elects is doing a fantastic job of covering candidates running in Cambridge. They are linking to candidate profiles and running town hall events.

Melissa Bowman publishes a blog about urban issues and local politics at https://citified.substack.com/ . Although the blog is relatively even-handed the blog reflects Bowman’s own views.

A group called the Waterloo Region Women’s Municipal Campaign School held workshops on how to run for political office. Several election candidates during this election credit the campaign school for inspiring them to run for office.

Bob Jonkman maintains listings of candidates and social media on his 2026 Municipal Election Poliblog site. We benefit from his research on our site.

I don’t trust your candidate listings. Where can I find the real ones?

Official candidate listing pages are linked from https://wrvotes.com .