Raise the Hammer

A slightly different take on the issue that yields some interesting data:
Below are some stats of the different wards sorted by household income.

ward income residents voters residents per voter
2 41307 37815 19424 1.946818369
3 45481 39910 23670 1.6861005492
4 51879 35635 23721 1.5022553855
5 57429 38965 25755 1.5129101145
1 63662 30080 20767 1.4484518708
6 63963 40645 28266 1.4379466497
7 67749 58395 40571 1.4393285845
9 76151 26695 19235 1.3878346764
8 78043 48400 34259 1.412767448
10 83741 24975 19350 1.2906976744
11 86334 25900 24655 1.0504968566
13 90585 24695 18439 1.3392808721
14 93633 15920 12147 1.3106116737
15 106619 25490 18609 1.3697673169
12 126715 31040 24449 1.269581578
totals: 504560 353317

While there is a reasonable correlation between average household income and total residents in the ward (R=0.5 when fit to a power function) it is of course the case that all the residents in a ward will not be eligible voters. Looking up the number of eligible voters in each ward from the 2010 election results available here:
http://old.hamilton.ca/clerk/election/2010-election-results/default.asp
gives the number in the chart above labeled as "voters". Running a regression on average household income vs number of eligible voters in each ward yields a very low correlation (R=0.2 when fit to a power function).
As can be seen in the rightmost column the lower income wards have more residents per voter than the higher income wards.
So, it seems to me that the evidence found thus far does not show that the influence of an individuals vote is significantly diluted by virtue of the fact that they happen to reside in a low income ward.
The problem might arise in the future however should some sort of change result in a larger percentage of low income ward residents becoming eligible voters.