Nominations for the upcoming Toronto local elections are officially in.
A total of 372 nominees were certified by Toronto City Clerk John Elvidge after the nomination deadline of 2:00pm on Friday.
31 certified candidates are competing for mayors, 164 for municipal councilors, and 177 candidates for school board trustee.
You can see a full list of candidates on the city’s website.
There are three school board wards where only one candidate has filed for nomination.
That’s an improvement from this time a week ago, when 13 school trustee races and two board races had just one candidate.
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Under Ontario municipal election rules, if there is only one certified candidate running in the race as of 4:00 p.m. on August 22, then that candidate will be officially elected by acclamation.
“On voting day, the ballot will show ‘Recognized’ for that position and the voter will only be able to mark their ballot for the other positions where more than one candidate is running (eg mayor and alderman),” city staff said in a release for news on Saturday.
Mayor John Tory is running for re-election, seeking a third term in office.
District 1 – Etobicoke North has the most certified candidates (16) of any councilor race.
Earlier this week, Rose Milchin was appointed by the City Council to fill the Ward 1 seat until the end of the current term on November 14.
The seat became vacant after former councilor Michael Ford left to run and ultimately win a seat for the same district in the provincial election in June.
Overall, there are significantly fewer candidates in this municipal election compared to the last election in 2018, when 501 candidates entered the race (35 for mayor, 242 for councilor and 224 for school superintendent).
The last election was also the first with a reduced model of 25 seats compared to the previous 47 seats.
Among the eleventh-hour filing candidates is celebrity TV host Anne Romer, who joined the Ward 11 (University-Rosedale) councilor race yesterday hours before the deadline.
The former CP24 host said she had been considering a career in politics for a while and decided to take the plunge after hearing the news about a lack of people running in this year’s election.
“I thought it was a sign. It is our democratic right to vote. It’s our democratic right to run for office and I want to exercise it,” Romer told reporters Friday at City Hall.
Voters should head to the polls on October 24.
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