Who, where Rob Ford got votes

Poll results show what areas of the city voted in Ford for mayor
Was it downtown, suburbs that gave him most support?
Kris Scheuer

Rob Ford is mayor-elect in Toronto having gotten 383,501 votes to win.
In second place was George Smitherman with 289,832 votes. Ford beat Smitherman with 93,669 more votes.
The mayor is elected city-wide, but what areas of T.O were Ford’s biggest supporters from? Curious? I was.
Today, the city election office released poll-by-poll results for all mayoral candidates. This let us know which of the 44 wards Rob Ford got his support from and where second-place finisher George Smitherman won his votes. Let’s take a look (and check this out to see where past mayor’s got their support).
On average here is the breakdown:
In Scarborough’s 10 wards Ford overwhelmingly beat Smitherman.
In Etobicoke’s 6 wards picked Ford by a huge margin.
More voters in York’s 6 wards loved Ford too than Smitherman.
North York and Don Valley wards also loved Ford.
Parkdale-High Park and the downtown core loved Smitherman.
Midtown was split with half of it voting more for Ford and the eastern part voting more for Smitherman.
Davenport (west end of downtown) half of it voted Ford and the other half supported Smitherman.
Four wards in Beaches, East York, Riverdale, east end: three wards sided with Smitherman and one ward wit Ford.

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Rocco Rossi platform for mayor

Mayoral hopeful attends Town Crier editorial board
Then announcing he’s quitting race hours later
Kris Scheuer
(Written for To wn Crier Oct. 13. See UPDATE.)

Mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi told the Town Crier’s editorial board today his campaign isn’t stumbling but picking up steam.
“I think the choice is clearer and clearer,” he said at the Oct. 13 session before he later announced he’d bow out of mayoral race.

Rocco Rossi at the Town Crier offices. Photo by Victor Aguilar/Town Crier.

With all the other candidates, save Joe Pantalone, having released their economic platforms, Rossi said that he’s riding high on the news that the Globe & Mail,Toronto Sun, National Post and Toronto Board of Trade have all said that so far his plan is the only one that adds up and is fiscally-responsible. His plan includes eliminating Toronto’s $3 billion in debt that costs the city $450 million in payments annually by selling off Toronto Hydro, the city’s a minority share in Enwave and some surplus land.

Increasing Toronto’s voter turn out

Don’t like your choices for council, mayor?
Run, encourage good candidates to register, then vote
By Kris Scheuer

What if no one voted in the next election? What if we boycotted the election as a political statement and thumbed our noses at the whole lot? What would happen then?
Sure it has never happened yet, but you have to wonder what is at the root cause of why more people don’t go to the polls.
Voter apathy is nothing new, as anywhere from 36 to 47 per cent of those who have the legal right to elect a provincial rep choose not to show up to the party.
In the 2006 Toronto election voter turn out was a lousy  39.3 percent across the city.
Some circumstances appear to shift this such as in ward 26 where there was no incumbent and 15 candidates ran. In that ward, voter turn out was 52 percent, which was the highest anywhere in the city that election.
So why do so few eligible voters exercise this right? Is this because citizens don’t care who is elected? Or is it a political statement? When we don’t vote are we trying to send a message “why bother to cast my ballot when none of the candidates vying for my vote represent my views?”
So why is Toronto’s voter turn out is so low? What motivates you to vote?