Four wards without candidates for councillors in Windsor municipal election

With less than three weeks until the official nomination period deadline on July 27, four wards are still without city councillor candidates. As of Friday evening, only 12 candidates have thrown their hats in the ring to become one of 10 ward councillors.

One of them is Kieran McKenzie running for Ward 9.

The low number of candidates may be due to a shorter nomination period.

"It's an earlier deadline than last campaign, the deadline for the last municipal race was September and now it's in July," said McKenzie during his city council campaign launch in Roseland Park Friday afternoon.

Changes were made to the Municipal Elections Act in 2016, where the nomination period was shortened to span from May 1 to July 27, when it used to last nine months from January to September.

In Ward 9, three candidates have already launched their campaigns, one of them being Mckenzie's. He hopes that other wards will soon have the same level of competition as his own.

"More people and more options I think could be a way to drive voter turnout up," he said.

Comparisons to 2014

The city's manager of records, Chuck Scarpelli, said it's difficult to make comparisons to the 2014 municipal elections because of the nomination period has changed.

However, election records show that of the four municipal elections since 2000, the lowest number of candidates was 61.

"So if you base it on that, we have about half the number of candidates of the lowest one we've ever had," Scarpelli said.

Aside from shortening the nomination period, candidates now "must be endorsed by at least 25 persons," says the Act.

But Scarpelli is still hopeful.

"There may be people out there right now who want to be candidates who are getting those names as we speak." 

Windsor's municipal election will be on Oct. 22. Voters will elect a mayor, ward councillors and school board trustees.