The campaign to elect a new city councillor for Don Valley West (Ward 15) is rapidly drawing to a close with only three days left until voting day on Monday, 4 November. As we have done in prior by-elections, RaBIT has been asking all candidates in this by-election to take our candidate pledge and commit to “support and work to restore Toronto's ability to use ranked ballots.” We’ve also asked them to commit, once it is again possible, “to vote in favour of Toronto using ranked ballots for its elections.” 

We are pleased to announced that a total of SEVEN candidates have taken RaBIT’s candidate pledge so far:

• Rachel Chernos Lin
• Evan Sambasivam (campaign suspended)
• Sheena Sharpe
• Shakhlo Sharipova
• Jason Stevens
• Lesley Stoyan
• Daniel Trayes

Thank you to these candidates for standing up for a better way to vote!

If you live in Don Valley West, or know someone who does, we urge you to consider supporting one of these candidates. If you have friends or family who live in the ward, please consider advocating on behalf of one of these candidates with them before voting day on Monday, 4 November. 

Help us by boosting our message on social media

For the past couple of weeks, RaBIT has been highlighting the support of these seven candidates for ranked ballots on our various social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Boosting the visibility of these posts by liking or sharing them is a great way for you to help us have a bigger impact on this by-election and a great way to help ensure that the winning candidate is someone who supports ranked ballots.

Still time to take the pledge

If you are a candidate in this by-election and would like to take the pledge, it is not too late, so please get in touch at [email protected]. We will continue to promote candidates’ support of ranked ballots right up to voting day. If you are a voter in Don Valley West and do not see the name of the candidate that you support on this list, please ask them why they haven’t taken RaBIT’s candidate pledge and encourage them to do so.

What’s next?

As always, thank you for your ongoing support. The decision by two candidates in this by-election (Evan Sambasivam and Dhruv Jain) to suspend their campaigns due to concerns related to vote splitting only highlights the importance of restoring Toronto’s ability to use ranked ballots in its elections.

RaBIT is committed to winning this fight. We’ve got a few new initiatives in development here at RaBIT HQ that we are planning on revealing in the weeks after this by-election is complete. So please, stay tuned!