Everything you need to know about voting in today’s provincial election

By Sam Odrowski

The provincial election is taking place today (Feb. 27) and there are several different voting locations in the Dufferin–Caledon riding. 

To find out where your polling station is, enter your postal code into “Voter Information Service” on the Election Ontario website at elections.on.ca.

The polls are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

There are seven candidates running in the Dufferin–Caledon riding.

Incumbent PC Party MPP Sylvia Jones, who has won the last five elections in the riding, is seeking re-election. She has been serving as the deputy premier and minister of health since 2022.

Sandy Brown, former mayor of Orangeville, is seeking election under the Green Party of Ontario banner.

Michael Dehn, mayor of Erin, is running for the Liberal Party of Ontario in the provincial election.

George Nakitsas, who worked for NDP leaders Jack Layton and Ed Broadbent for over 10 years, has put his name forward to represent the NDP. 

Jeffrey Halsall is running as an Independent, Kris Eggleton is running as a New Blue Party candidate and Alexey Cherkashov is running as an Ontario Moderate Party candidate. 

In the 2022 provincial election, the voter turnout was 41.67 per cent or 46,088 of the eligible 110,615 voters cast a ballot in Dufferin–Caledon. This was on par with the provincial turnout of 43.5 per cent, which was the lowest voter turnout on record since Ontario was founded.   

This year, 6.14 per cent of eligible Ontario voters have taken part in advanced voting. In 2022, 9.92 per cent of voters cast ballots in early voting and in 2018 it was 6.8 per cent. 

Roughly 10.8 million people are eligible to vote in Ontario. 

The results of the 2022 provincial election in Dufferin–Caledon were:

Sylvia Jones (PC Party) received 49.67 per cent of the vote;

Bob Gordanier (Liberal Party) received 18.81 per cent of the vote;

Laura Campbell (Green Party) received 14.13 per cent of the vote;

Tess Prendergast (NDP) received 10.77 per cent of the vote;

Andrea Banyai (New Blue Party) received 4.94 per cent of the vote;

Lil Nguyen (Ontario Party) received 1.28 per cent of the vote;

Erickumar Emmanuel (Moderate) received 0.23 per cent of the vote;

Kay Sayer (Public Benefit) received 0.17 per cent of the vote.

All voting information in the upcoming provincial election can be found at elections.on.ca or by calling the Dufferin–Caledon Elections Ontario Office at 1-(833)-505-3408 between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. from Monday to Saturday. The office is also open on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.