Sleepy summer byelection?

Not if the provincial New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives can help it. Both parties are working hard this week to minimize the wild card factor in Thursday’s five provincial contests : low voter turnout.

Critics have hammered Premier Kathleen’s Wynne for scheduling the five contests while many voters are off on vacation, arguing that expected low turnouts in long-held Liberal ridings will give the party an unfair advantage on election night.

Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) said she’s “disappointed” with the date chosen by Wynne for the byelections — she feels the premier tried to “subvert democracy” by suppressing votes — but the Tories will nevertheless pull out all the stops to get their committed voters to the polls.

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“It’s too early to tell, but we’ll see if there’s enough anger to get people away from the cottage or their vacations to vote’’ MacLeod said Monday.

She pointed out that this week’s races are for the five seats vacated by Dalton McGuinty and former Liberal cabinet ministers, so the Liberal machinery is well established in those ridings. The party won those seats by thousands of votes in the previous election, which creates a formidable challenge for opposition candidates this time around.

The five ridings are Scarborough-Guildwood, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ottawa South, Windsor-Tecumseh and London West.

NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson told reporters at Queen’s Park that the Liberals are counting on low voter turnout for one reason: “They’re hoping nobody’s going to notice what’s going on because they’re all at the cottage, and when they go to the polls in low numbers, somehow that will work out to (the Liberals’ advantage).”

Wynne, while out on the campaign trail in Scarborough on Monday, said byelections are “challenging” for governments.

“We’re going to do everything that we can to be successful in every one of the ridings,” she told reporters.

Low turnouts tend to favour incumbents, particularly in municipal elections, in which there are no parties and the few voters who do show up simply pick the names they know and go home, said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.

But Wiseman said the anticipated low voter turnout this week may not necessarily be a slam-dunk victory for the Liberals. The expectation of low numbers at the voting stations means all the parties will be working hard to mobilize their bases — and that could spell trouble for the Liberals, he said.

Negative feelings are strong motivators when it comes to voting, he said, so the NDP and Progressive Conservatives could have an easier time getting their people out Thursday.

Voters satisfied with the job the Liberals are doing may just decide to sit this one out.

“That’s dangerous to the Liberals,’’ Wiseman told the Star on Monday.

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He pointed to widespread voter discontent over a number of issues, including the $585-million cancellation of gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville by the Liberals.

In the 2011 general election, voter participation dropped below 50 per cent for the first time, setting a record low for voter turnout in Ontario. Elections Ontario anticipates between 30 to 35 per cent of eligible voters will turn up Thursday, which is standard for byelections.