Lucky Number 7

As of last night (and I just checked now to be sure), Ward 13 is officially being contested by no less than seven candidates, making it the second most popular Ward after 3, which, so far, has nine candidates.

In addition to me, Danya Scime, Toby Yull and Mark Coull, we've been joined by Arlene Vanderbeek, Russ Powers' executive assistant, Pamela Mitchell, a local volunteer, and Rick Court, a former Dean at Mohawk.

Nominations don't even close until mid-September! Who knows how many people we'll have by October 27th! Nine, ten - who can tell?

I can't say I blame them; Dundas is a marvellous, singular place and it would be a great honour to represent our town at City Hall. As I've said before, I have nothing but admiration for people who offer themselves up to run for public office. I know what a leap of faith it was for me and it takes tremendous confidence to open yourself up to such public scrutiny.

With seven candidates and no incumbent, it is practically a mathematical certainty that whoever does win (and I still am planning on winning) will do it with nowhere near a majority.

Let's run some quick numbers. There are about 20,000 eligible voters in Dundas. Turn-out in the last election was about 8,000 voters. Russ Powers won with around 55% of the vote. That means that slightly more than 25% of the people of Dundas voted for him.

Elections with incumbents unfold in a relatively predictable manner assuming the incumbent is generally well liked. People generally stay away since they assume the incumbent will win and those that do vote usually opt to go with a name they recognize.

Let's assume that due to a complete lack of incumbents (new Mayor, new Councillor and new Trustee), voter turn-out jumps dramatically to 50%. That means that 10,000 votes will be cast.

Split that seven ways (for now) and each of us could reasonably be expected to garner about 1,500 votes.

Let's say that one particular candidate rises above the rest (hopefully me...) and gets 2,500 votes.

That would mean that our new Councillor, who is expected to represent the interests of the entire town, will earn their spot with about 13% support.

This is fairly mind boggling.

I've written this with only one goal in mind: VOTE! Voting never counts more than it does in a municipal election. Every. Single. Vote. Matters.