Toronto Voting

Now that the dust has settled on the Toronto Mayoral campaign, it is worth taking a quick look at how this campaign went – the results and what it took for me to vote; a through discussion later on, time-permitting.

Though I had planned to vote in advance, I only managed to make it to the polling station around 6-6:30pm on Monday. Having moved downtown after years living uptown, I now live in Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) and did not receive the voting card. I looked up online where to vote and the City of Toronto MyVote application told me I should go to the City Hall.

The security guys at the entrance told me there is no voting at the City Hall – there was only advance voting but that’s over. According to them, many people had come to vote but could not. They suggested I walk inside and call 311, which I did.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised. Since moving out, I encountered difficulties voting in the provincial election (where, again, the online Election Ontario website told me to go to the Aboriginal Community House on Spadina, North of Bloor, while there I was told I was in the wrong location, there is nobody I can call and nobody can help me).

Here are the stats for Ward 20.

• Median age: 33
• Median household income: $57,129
• Median personal income: $33,826
• Population: 73,285
• Unemployment rate: 7.8
• Persons per household: 1.78

This time, I called 311 from the phones inside (there were also some large displays, possibly touch enabled). There were only 3-4 people inside, on the right (I cropped them out of the photo) who quickly disappeared when they noticed I was taking photos.

After the customary “this call is recorded” the operator directed me to St Stephen’s Community House, located very close to Kensington Market on Bellevue, just South of College Street.

There they authenticated me using ID from the list below and I then completed the following form:

The polling station seemed to be manned by only 3 people. The person feeding the voting scanner was rather antsy and seemed to hate standing in his place, causing the other two to remind him he has to stay there. In the end I voted and watched my paper disappear into the vote scanner, not knowing where it went or what was the result.

The end result was John Tory getting elected as Mayor and for my Ward, Joe Cressy (widely favoured by the media) winning with 42% of the vote, with the second contender, Terri Chu, managing to get only 12%.

I have published in a form below all the Ward 20 candidates who have listed more than their name.

Sources / More info: my-vote, ts-voting, tor-vote-id (PDF), ts-qs, ts-nothing, np-how2, tgm-jt, nowt-tv, cbc-timeline, cbc-results, np-testvote, ts-newcomers, ts-nothing, w20, form, results

Tdot Zamo, elections, municipal elections, toronto, canada, voting, john tory (Tags)