Steven Williams and Sherri-Lyn Hill are running to be chief of the elected council.
While it's unclear how many people will vote this year, the 2023 election is especially consequential - members will get to vote for a new chief and 12 councillors, three more than last election in 2019. Its territory includes the Haldimand Tract, an area of land around the Grand River granted to Six Nations in 1784. Today, 38 municipalities in southern Ontario sit on lost Six Nations lands. There are over 25,000 band members in Six Nations, nearly all of them eligible voters according to the Six Nations elected council, and over 12,000 live in the community - about 40 kilometres south of Hamilton - making Six Nations the most populous First Nations reserve in Canada. Voter turnout in the 2019 election was low, with 1,716 ballots cast for chief (that doesn't include spoiled ballots), or roughly seven per cent of the community. They're separate from the elected council, also called the band council, a governance system created under the Indian Act and imposed by the federal government. That's a reference to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council (HCCC), the traditional leaders of the Haudenosaunee people, who many see as the representatives of the community. Sherlene Bomberry said she isn't voting in the election.
