More than 5,400 people will vote by mail for mayor, councillor and school board trustee in the 2026 City of Ottawa municipal election. This is the second municipal election in the City of Ottawa that residents can vote by mail-in ballot. In 2022, the city mailed out 10,179 Special Ballot Voter Kits, and 8,685 mail-in ballots were returned to the city. Residents had to apply to the city by Sept. 15 to vote by special mail-in ballot for this election. The City of Ottawa says the Elections Office issued 5,497 Special Ballot Voter Kits to residents to vote by mail. The kits will include instructions on how to vote, a voter declaration form, a ballot, a ballot secrecy envelope and a prepaid return envelope. Electors can mail or deliver the completed voting kit to the Elections Office or any City of Ottawa Client Service Centre during business hours. The completed voting kits must be delivered to the Elections Office or any Client Service Centre by 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 16. “Any voting kits received after this deadline will not be counted,” the city said. The completed voting kits received by mail or dropped off at the Elections Office or Client Service Centre will go through established intake processes. The city says there will be one ballot processing event on Saturday, Oct. 24, where the Secrecy Envelopes will be opened, and ballots will be extracted from the envelopes and processed through a tabulator. The unofficial results from the special mail-in ballot processing event will be stored in a “secure location” until they are “uploaded to the results server” once the polls close on Oct. 26, according to the city. A report for a city committee in March said it would cost $236,516 to implement the special mail-in ballot for the election. Ottawa residents can cast a ballot in person or by proxy in the municipal election. Four Special Advance Voting Days are being held from Oct. 1 to Oct. 4, an Advance Voting Day will be held on Friday, Oct. 16 and voting day is Monday, Oct. 26. As of Sept. 20, there were 868,248 eligible electors on the Voters’ List for the 2026 Municipal Election. In 2022, there were 722,227 eligible electors in the municipal election, with voter turnout at 43.79 per cent. Approximately 1.5 million ballots have been printed in preparation for the election.
