Joe Pantalone 51.6%  | George Smitherman 22.6%  | Himy Syed 12.9%
Toronto Mayor Round 6

By John Ford, Vote By Choice
OTTAWA – People participating in a Ranked Choice Voting experiment have cast ballots parallel to the 2010 Ontario municipal elections.
While in the experiment the Ottawa Mayoral contest was won on the first ballot, the Toronto Mayor was elected after six ballots needed to break the fifty percent plus one threshold.
Joe Pantalone was able to achieve 51.6% with distributed votes from dropped candidates Rob Ford, Sarah Thomson, and Abdullah-Baquie Ghazi.
George Smitherman reached 22.6% …

By Greg Burrell, The General Ledger
Back near the beginning of the election campaign in Toronto, I wrote a post blasting the leading candidates for their lack of progressive ideas and unwillingness to fight for the people of Toronto (Toronto’s progressive political void, 17 June 2010). I commented that the race for mayor of Toronto had been disappointing for all progressives, especially because of media skewing the issues that matter, and the long campaign certainly has been nothing but disappointing. Adam Giambrone’s campaign self-destructed long before we were able to hear his …

From Take The Tooker
50 politically motivated cyclists took to Bloor today (Oct. 23) to say “We Bike We Vote”.
En route they were greeted by Mayoral hopeful Himy Syed who redirected cyclists to the car drop-off loop across from Trinity Bellwoods Park, jumped on a table, and passionately articulated his desire for a bicycle-friendly city.
The mass then took their message for bike lanes on Bloor to the offices of Councillor Vaughan, and Mayoral hopefuls Joe Pantalone and George Slitherman.

Vote on Monday, Oct. 25th for bike friendly Council candidates! …

Cycling advocates aim to grow awareness amongst candidates of cyclists’ concerns with current conditions.
By Yvonne Bambrick, Toronto Cyclists Union
Toronto, September 27, 2010 – In an effort to share the daily experience of thousands of cycle commuters, the Toronto Cyclists Union led 8 of the Mayoral Candidates on a 30 minute rush-hour commute by bicycle this morning. Candidates were invited to share their experience & plans with the media at a 9:15am press conference following the ride.
Yvonne Bambrick, the Toronto Cyclists Union’s Director of Communications led today’s 20 person ride …

By Mike Adler, InsideToronto
Underdogs and also-rans take heart: more change than usual is coming to city council, a gathering of non-incumbent candidates heard Monday, Sept. 13.
It’s normally “near impossible” to defeat a city councillor, and some can be with us for decades, but on Oct. 25 nine of 44 council seats have no incumbent running, said Himy Syed, a mayoral candidate who called council challengers to a Bloor Street church to help shorten their odds of winning.
In the front row was Daniel Murton, running to unseat Pam McConnell in Ward …

By Matthew Woolley, blogTO
A gathering for “unincumbent” council candidates organized by mayoral candidate HiMY SYeD was held at Dovercourt Baptist Church yesterday.
About a dozen participated in the underdog’s pep rally – with nine city councillors retiring or running for mayor, it is an unusually open year for council candidates from any background or experience level.
But unlike their more visible, mayoral counterparts, these DIYers came out to encourage each other and swap stories.
“We’re all coming at you like vultures,” one candidate said.
When they’re off …

By Kelly Grant, The Globe and Mail
Update: A white knight has emerged! It’s Weizhen Tang, the alleged ponzi schemer who calls himself the “Chinese Warren Buffett.” He just registered for mayor.
It’s 2 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2010. If you’re one of those white knights Torontonians have been begging to jump into the mayor’s race, you have exactly 24 hours to make up your mind. Registrations close tomorrow at 2 p.m. David Miller? Adam Vaughan? Bueller? In the likely event that a hero doesn’t emerge, the field is set. Thirty-eight people …

From Toronto Star Photo Blog, July 2010
Some of the best of Toronto Star photo department’s best pictures of the Hot month of July!

By Dave Meslin, Mez Dispenser
Here’s the May 30 election snapshot,  a monthly look at how municipal candidates are distributed across our grand city.
Fourteen new candidates registered this month, in twelve wards.  Three candidates dropped out.
There are still four acclaimed candidates, two of which are incumbents: Peter Milczyn & Chin Lee.
HiMY SYeD dropped out of the ward 19 race, to run for mayor.
The highest number of candidates is ward 27 (Kyle Rae’s ward) with 13 candidates.  Want to meet them all?  A group called #VoteTO is hosting an “All Candidate Gameshow” on Thursday …

By Jon Sufrin, Toronto Life

The Rebel Mayor situation, the municipal election’s only fun gossip story so far, may have ended before it was spoken of outside of city hall. For the uninitiated, an anonymous tweeter known as Rebel Mayor has been poking fun at just about every public figure in Toronto since November 2009, with a particular emphasis on mayoral candidates. The identity of the musket-wielding, Scotch-swilling, Prius-driving, old English–spouting reincarnation of William Lyon Mackenzie (who chronicles the travails of his “team” as he campaigns to reclaim his place as Toronto’s mayor) …

By Natalie Alcoba, National Post
UPDATE 9:48 p.m. ET: A cryptic email neither confirms nor denies the identity of Twitter’s “Rebel Mayor.”
An email sent by the National Post to Himy Syed, whose duplicate tweet earlier today led to speculation he was Rebel Mayor, received this response:

“‘Team’ has withdrawn Blackberry privileges until further notice. xo”

—
Has a mystery older than the municipal election — and generating practically as much interest among City Hall keeners — been solved?
Rebel Mayor (@rebelmayor), the reincarnation of William Lyon Mackenzie on Twitter, has been amusing followers since November with …

By Jackson Proskow, Global News  Toronto
He was Toronto’s first mayor, and leader of the Upper Canada rebellion. These days he’s best known for working with his “Team” to add a musket rack to his Prius.
Confused? So is most of City Hall.
For the last few months someone has been posing as William Lyon Mckenzie on Twitter – under the handle “rebelmayor.” (The rebel describes himself as “Toronto’s first mayor – 1837 rebellion starter – back & pissed & running for Toronto mayor in 2010”). The question of just who this person might …

By George Sawision on 5 Mar 2010
Recorded on March 5, 2010 using a Flip Video camcorder.

By JENNIFER LEWINGTON, The Globe and Mail
As soon as the bell rang yesterday to kick off the Toronto election race, a contingent of fresh and familiar faces quickly put their names on the ballot for Oct. 25.
First among the 40 who signed up on day one of the municipal campaign, up from 24 on the first day of the 2006 contest, was former Liberal Party national director Rocco Rossi, bidding to succeed Mayor David Miller.
“I will be able to put the team and the money in place to put a …

By Matthew Blackett, Spacing Votes

Himy Syed, a candidate in Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina, is opening his campaign office Sunday afternoon.
But it’s not your typical office — it’s located in the former Metro porn theatre on Bloor Street West, just east of Christie Street, in Little Korea [click here for a photo of theatre].
I suspect he’s the only candidate to have an office in a former porn theatre, but weirder things have happened in this election so far.

By Ramanan Sivaranjan, A Funkaoshi Production
I thought this wasn’t a political debate.
Shima and I attended a talk last night at the Theatre Centre — it’s part of that gorgeous building at the corner Dovercourt and Queen. In attendance were 2 candidates from our ward, Adam Giambrone and Simon Wookey. Shima informed me that the remaining guests were also worth paying attention to: they were John Sewell, who is apparently a bit of a planning superstar, but is better known for being a former mayor of Toronto (before my time), and Adam Vaughan, who …

By KAREN MACKENZIE, Spacing Votes

The addictive potential of last week’s Nuit Blanche now leaves me in withdrawal. I polled candidates in wards 18, 19, 20, and 21, in hopes I could live vicariously through their tales of the all-night art party’s witching hour.
Everyone who responded vowed to support the event for another year.
Himy Syed, a candidate running in Ward 19 Trinity-Spadina, had the most enthusiastic response by far (editor’s disclaimer: Syed contributes to Spacing Photos regularly). At the witching hour, Syed was atop the CN Tower with a photoblogger crew. He posted a …

By Matthew Blackett, Spacing Votes

Himy Syed, a Spacing Photos contributor and a candidate in Ward 19, has posted a video of the press conference announcing the final number of candidates registered for the 2006 municipal election.
Greg Essensa, Director of Elections and Registry Services, fields questions from a small group of reporters.
Himy has also created a You Tube group for videos of the 2006 election.

By Jennifer Lewington, The Globe and Mail, page A13
Some fresh political faces with ambitions to pack off a few city hall lifers this Nov. 13 election day dropped by the clamshell this week.
With a Toronto protocol official as guide, candidates in the City Idol talent contest — the non-profit grassroots group formed to liven up local politics — got the cook’s tour.
On Thursday, about 15 of the 43 political wannabes dropped by the mayor’s office, checked in with election services and sat in briefly on a live session of council. …

By Dale Duncan, Eye Weekly
The Music Hall is almost packed when the lights dim and David Meslin walks onto the stage to kick off City Idol, the first in a series of events during which audience members will choose four candidates to run in November’s municipal election. The show is starting a bit behind schedule, and the crowd of nearly 600 people is getting anxious; after all, they have decided to spend their Friday night listening to a marathon of 82 back-to-back speeches by wannabe politicians.
It’s pure coincidence auditions for …

By St Dan, BlogTO
We live in a city where 44% of the population is represented by 2.5% of the councilors; where 60% of the population don’t exercise their civic franchise; where a councilor is nearly as likely to be acclaimed as to lose their seat; and where most people don’t even know when the next election is. Dave Meslin wants to change all that. I sat down with him at Cafe Diplomatico to talk about City Idol, his new project to increase public …

By Dale Duncan
Eye Weekly, February 16, 2006
BUZZ
Political karaoke

With the federal election finally out of the way, political nerds are now free to focus on the municipal race. Unfortunately, Toronto city council elections don’t usually attract a throng of loyal followers. Those who get off on municipal elections are a dying breed, a trend that’s reflected in our low voter turnout.
In 2003, only 38 per cent of Torontonians bothered to vote. According to Dave Meslin, this lack of participation has a lot to do with the way our city elections …