More than 31,000 Ontario voters — including some 1,800 in the Hamilton area — chose to forfeit their right to vote in last week's provincial election.

Unofficial results show close to 31,400 voters opted to decline their ballots — the highest number since 1975 and a 1,200 per cent increase over 2011.

"These are people who are pretty committed citizens, but they just couldn't find anyone to light their fire," said Henry Jacek, a political science professor at McMaster University. "There were a lot of negatives on all three party leaders."

Elections Ontario says it also counted 22,687 rejected ballots and 12,059 unmarked ballots in the June 12 contest. In city ridings, 855 ballots were rejected and 447 unmarked.

Andrew Willis, a spokesperson for the agency, said a declined ballot is different from an unmarked one because it involves a voter actively informing an officer at the poll that they are choosing to decline to vote.

The officer then marks the ballot as declined and counts it separately from rejected or unmarked ballots.

In Hamilton and the communities surrounding it, the riding with the highest percentage of declined ballots was Haldimand-Norfolk, where 600 of 42,854 votes were officially forfeited — or 1.4 per cent. Halton had the lowest percentage, with 412 of 75,713 votes declined. That's 0.54 per cent.

Elections Ontario has also flagged its unofficial results in some ridings including Hamilton Centre, in which 70 declined ballots were recorded at a single poll. That's more than the number of votes that were cast for candidates.

Democracy Watch, a national advocacy group, publically criticized Elections Ontario for what it called the agency's "continuing negligence" to inform voters of their right to decline.

That push — along with the ensuing media coverage — could have made a difference in the overall number of declined votes, McMaster's Jacek said. But he doesn't think it's the whole story.

"There was no extra enthusiasm for any of the parties, there was no extra enthusiasm for any of the leaders."

Declined votes

Many voters in Hamilton and surrounding communities formally declined their ballots in last week's provincial election.

Here's a breakdown of the percentage of votes forfeited by riding:

Haldimand-Norfolk: 1.40%

Hamilton Centre: 1.35%

Niagara West-Glanbrook: 1.12%

Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale: 0.97%

Burlington: 0.87%

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek: 0.87%

Hamilton Mountain: 0.87%

Halton: 0.54%

Source: Elections Ontario

