It’s a bit funny to apply (or re-apply) for a job by talking to everyone in town. But when done right, elections are an invaluable way of ensuring that our council members are in touch with the community, aware of pressing issues, and responsive to people’s concerns and aspirations. But what does “done right” look like? In this post we’ll take a look at modern campaigning, with its benefits and challenges, to give you a sense of what to expect from your candidates this year. At the end I’ll give you a rundown of how you can support my campaign, if you feel so inspired, so feel free to skip down if you want to get right to it š
The Rules
Municipal elections are carried out by municipal clerks, but governed by provincial laws – which is to say that we have very little control over how elections happen. If you want a full rundown of the rules, please check out our municipal elections page, it has excellent information, including a list of candidates whose nominations are already in. But in this section I’ll point out the things that we do have control over, and how that will shape the campaign.
Signs
The first thing I’ll point out is that council approved several changes to our elections signs by-law in this term, which governs who can put up election signs in Brighton, where, and when. As part of those changes, we approved a limitation on the duration of election signs: they may only be set up for the final month of the campaign. This has a big impact on the election campaign itself, because of the way that signs influence us.
Election signs serve two major purposes: they act as advertising for a candidate, sure, but they also serve to indicate support for that candidate. Getting signs out in an election is not just about promoting name recognition, it’s mostly about showing how popular a candidate is. Having the most signs on lawns gives the impression that a candidate is the most popular, and as any sports fan knows all too well, bandwagons are real: we humans have a tendency to support a person or team just because we see many other people supporting them. Getting a lot of signs out early sends the message that people support a candidate with a lot of enthusiasm: if your neighbours not only support a candidate, but could hardly wait to show how much they support them, that’s really saying something.
Except that often it isn’t. The first time I ran for public office was in 2015, in the federal riding of Provencher in Manitoba, where front lawns were a sea of blue signs. Looking down almost any street in the riding, you might have the impression that the Conservative candidate had unanimous support. But when I would canvass, residents would tell me that they didn’t necessarily support that candidate, but they also didn’t object to the candidate’s team setting up a sign on their lawn. It turns out the campaign team wasn’t asking “do you support our candidate”, they were asking “can we put a sign here?” In hindsight I would love to know just how many signs were out there, and compare that to the number of people who actually voted! Yes, the Conservative candidate won handily in that riding (and seemingly always does), but it does make me wonder how much stock they put in bandwagon politics.
By limiting signs to the final month of the campaign, we limit the visual clutter on our streets, which decreases distraction for traffic. But it also changes the incentives for campaign signs. While I declared my candidacy as soon as I could, just a few days after nominations opened, there’s no longer any real advantage to being first because there’s no visual signal in the community of my candidacy. Someone who declares on the last possible day (August 21) has just as many days to have their signs up as I do. Unless people are checking the municipal website to see who has declared their candidacy, there’s no way of knowing who has even declared unless we’re out connecting with people in person or on doorsteps. And connecting with people takes a lot more work, time, and money, so limiting signs serves to level the playing field for candidates.
Use of Public Facilities
Another change council supported this term was to prevent any candidate from using public facilities for campaign purposes. By provincial law we cannot use public resources for campaign purposes, which is to say that I can’t campaign from my official council email address, using my municipally-issued iPad, or dedicating municipal resources of any kind just to promote myself. Our by-law takes this further, banning candidates from renting municipal spaces for public events. Even if I were to pay a rental fee, I cannot hold a campaign event at the Owen Gibb Hall at King Edward Park, the Codrington Community Centre, Memorial Park Stage, or the Brighton Public Library. On the whole I think this is very good, though it does leave very few places in Brighton to hold events.
Online Voting
Council also approved using online voting for this election. There were concerns raised by residents about this, and those concerns were incorporated into our clerks’ approach to the election. While any resident will be able to vote from their own home if they have an internet connection, they will also have the ability to vote in person (via a computer kiosk) at the municipal office, scheduled times at the Codrington Community Centre, and upon request a clerk can personally guide you through the process. The internet voting system is also secure: Simply Voting is a company that has been around for a long time, handled much larger votes (including votes of party membership at the federal level), and has shown themselves to be very responsive to issues and challenges in internet security.
Internet voting may feel different for folks who are accustomed to voting in person on a paper ballot, but it’s worth noting that for folks who are not accustomed to paper ballots, traditional voting isn’t a simple and straightforward process. Aside from the discomfort some have for internet processes, online voting is the simpler process, and accessible to folks who otherwise might not have (or take) time to go to an in-person voting station. It also requires less staff, and therefore saves money. My hope is that as more people become accustomed to online voting it can improve voter turnout even as it greatly simplifies the process for staff and increases certainty of the results for all.
But because online voting is still relatively new (we used it for the first time in 2022), expect your candidates to explain the process to you. Seasoned candidates know that we need to not only earn your support, but do everything we can to make sure that you actually vote on election day, since voter turnout has been in steady decline for years. If you want to see how our clerks reviewed the 2022 election, you can see it here. If you want to see how the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks, and Treasurers of Ontario (AMCTO) assessed online voting across the province after the 2022 election, you can see it here (and it really is quite interesting!). Finally, here‘s a review of online voting in Ontario from Brock University.
Getting the Word Out
Aside from signs, which can passively reach a lot of people but has very little information, how can candidates connect with residents?
Mailings
There are around 5200 post office boxes in Brighton, including rural routes. Expect to get a flier or postcard in your mailbox from most candidates, probably in September or October. A locally printed postcard costs around $0.10 to print and about $0.19 to mail, so for about $1500 a candidate can get a piece of paper into the hands of virtually every household.
Ads
In the past, print advertisement would have been a major feature of political campaigning. Without a local newspaper or magazines, expect all ads to be radio or online. Radio ads are relatively expensive compared to the mailings I mentioned above, so I tend to rank them as a “nice to have” when I’m planning my campaign finances. And it’s quite difficult to gauge the effectiveness of online ads, particularly when they’re mostly on social media where it’s possible to run a relatively successful “organic” campaign (getting supporters to like and share content for free).
Social Media
Social media campaigning tends to look like candidates setting up profiles on social media sites (especially Facebook), joining local groups, and posting about local issues. I know many politicians who swear by this method, and it has some real advantages. It can be entirely free; it “meets the people where they are,” insofar as Facebook remains popular and one of the only remaining places that might count as a “public square”; and it can serve to share a lot of information both regularly and quickly. In the past I used social media for all of my campaigns, and I know that the current mayor of Cobourg campaigned solely online on principle as part of his vision for modernizing municipal governance.
But it wasn’t long after the 2022 election that I decided to close my Facebook account entirely, and focus on using this space to connect with residents. My reach is much smaller, relying on blog subscribers instead of posting to the local Facebook group that has thousands of members. But I still count closing my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts among the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Social media platforms are, by design, psychologically manipulative. They amplify outrage, spread misinformation, and platform all kinds of harmful content. Studies have shown incredible negative impacts on society, including decimating the mental health of a generation, making us dumber, and undermining democracy. They are responsible for hollowing out the newsmedia as they increasingly control access to information, as part of a deliberate and increasingly common strategy now known as “enshittification“. These companies have harmed people and put our institutions at serious risk. For that reason alone, I don’t feel good about setting up a new Facebook account just for the sake of campaigning.
Which is not to pass judgment on anyone who uses the tools available to them. The point of “enshittification” is that these platforms have eroded virtually every other form of mass communication, and we all work with the tools that we have. I know that I’m making my campaign harder by not using these tools, and not everyone has the luxury of turning down some of the few tools that remain. Nonetheless, I will not be running a social media campaign.
Canvassing
Going door to door is the original campaigning method, and it’s still the gold standard. Meeting people at their own home is the ultimate expression of “meeting people where they’re at,” and gives most people the opportunity to tell candidates how they feel about the current direction of the municipality, and any concerns they have. Candidates typically bring a flier or postcard with them when they go door to door, so that they can leave evidence that they were there in case you aren’t home.
As much as canvassing is cheap, it can be quite difficult and time consuming. Most candidates will focus on urban areas because they can hit a lot of doors in a relatively short amount of time; rural canvassing often involves driving most of the day in order to hit a relatively small number of doors. Because of this, rural residents often feel ignored, which is deeply regrettable.
Aside from the time and energy needed (and good shoes; I bought new shoes this year for this purpose!), the biggest challenge with canvassing is exuberant or anxious dogs. Many years of canvassing have made me less and less of a “dog person”: aside from being chased by a Great Dane once (not many dogs are bigger than me!), I have found it quite common to have doorstep conversations dominated by anxious or excited dogs, and many times conversations prove simply impossible. For dog owners: please expect to see several candidates coming to your door over the summer and especially in September and October, and please be prepared to step outside to have a brief conversation or otherwise to help your pets deal with visitors during this time. None of us want to cause stress for you or your pets, but we have few opportunities to speak to you aside from going door to door. If you’re expecting candidates to be coming by, some preparation can make for a better experience for you and your dogs (and your candidates too!).
I intend to emphasize canvassing in my campaign strategy this year, but largely only because I am avoiding social media campaigning. Fitting door knocking into a busy life, over a summer period (forecasted to be particularly hot) where people are very likely to not be home anyway, and hoping to have quality conversations on a doorstep, is largely unrealistic. And as politics becomes more polarizing in general, I have found that even if I can make it to someone’s home and they answer the door, the number of people who are not interested in a conversation, or who are even openly hostile, has increased. Even committing to canvassing as much as I can, I hope you’ll understand if I don’t make it to your doorstep; there are thousands of homes in Brighton, and I know that I will only make it to a small portion of them. Please don’t let that discourage you from reaching out, I’d love to hear from as many people as possible!
Events
Events are by far my favourite form of campaigning. It’s a chance to connect with people in real life, to have real conversations, in an environment in which people are actively interested in talking about our collective future.
There are three types of common campaign events:
- All-candidate events that are open to the public, often with Q&A or debates, to help residents discern between the candidates;
- Single candidate events that are open to the public, in which a candidate will seek to draw in as many voters as possible, sometimes in the form of a rally, “town hall”, or meet-and-greet;
- Private events, usually in a resident’s home, for a smaller and more intimate meet-and-greet. These are sometimes called “coffee parties,” and are organized to reach out to a single neighbourhood or interest group.
As I mentioned above, candidates are not allowed to book publicly owned spaces for campaign events. I don’t yet know if there will be a debate or all-candidates’ meeting; in the past those have been held at the Legion and the ENSS gymnasium, and I hope they will be again. I have wondered if there would be sufficient interest to warrant renting a private space, such as the Dove or a church space, for a campaign event; let me know if you think people would be interested in such an event!
Ways to Support My Campaign
If you’re here reading this, there’s a good chance that you would like to see me return to council for the 2026-2030 term. Thank you for your support! Here are the best ways to support me:
Coffee Parties
I would love to spend an evening in your living room or backyard with a dozen of your friends and neighbours, talking about the state of Brighton and our collective future. If you’re willing to host and invite some folks, I can bring some snacks, and we can have a great discussion. This is by far the best way to support my campaign, and the most fun a person can have in politics. Please reach out if you’re able to host!
Donations
Municipal election campaigns are largely self-funded, especially for people like me who can sometimes be shy about asking anyone for donations. We also cannot issue tax receipts, unlike other levels of political campaigning, so your donation must be truly a contribution from the heart! Campaign donations can fund:
- Mailers: a $50 donation covers ~180 postcards mailed to residents
- Signs: a $50 donation covers 2 lawn signs
- Snacks: a $50 donation covers all of the snacks for a coffee party
- Radio ads: a $500 donation will get my voice on the radio!
I’ll do my best to keep my expenses low, but still expect to spend $2-4k. If you’re able to help me cover even a little bit of that, I will be tremendously grateful! Please reach out if you’re able to contribute in any amount, it all helps.
Host a Sign
Hosting a sign during the final month of the campaign is a great help! Let me know that you’re willing, and I’ll take care of setting it up on your lawn and retrieving it after the election. If you are also able to help cover the cost of that sign with a $20 donation, that would be greatly appreciated.
Spreading the Word
Finally, nothing is quite as important as word of mouth. Even for those who like to remain apolitical most of the time, this is an opportunity to have good conversations with your neighbours about the future of our community. If you think that I would be a good steward of our community and that future, I would be honoured if you would say so to others. Your opinion is valuable to your neighbours, especially when it is shared with kindness, thoughtfulness, and aspiration.
Thank you for reading this far, and for investing your time and thoughtfulness into our community’s future!