Popularity contest: Which council candidate is winning in your ward?

10 Oct 2014 | Comments

Admitedly, social media doesn't tell the whole story, but in today's media-obsessed culture it is always fun to observe.

In the table below, we've gathered up the latest data on city council candidate's Twitter accounts. We've presented it sorted by ward, then by number of followers, the most followers to least. Feel free to sort the table any way you like -- just click on the header you want to sort by -- to get a sense of the numbers.

What stands out at first glance is an outlier like Benjamin Dichter with a whopping 100,000+ followers -- that's three times more than previous mayoralty candidate, Sarah Thompson, and almost seven times more than the councilor he is aiming to unseat, Kristyn Wong-Tam. At this rate, Dichter might even catch up to Toronto mayor Rob Ford (178k followers). There must be an interesting story there.

While Twitter followers or social media savvy may not be a deciding factor in a race, people across the country applaud personalities like Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi (190k followers) for his candid and witty remarks online.

Then there's Derek Power. A dashing Twitter profile photo, but only three followers! (Admission, I think that we were the first to follow the candidate). You should probably follow him because Twitter isn't very much fun with only three followers.

Enjoy the table below, and let us know what you think!

(And, keep in mind that only candidates who've provided a link to their Twitter account are included. Know of a candidate's Twitter account that is missing? Drop us a line.)

Photo	Ward	Name	Follower Count
	2	Abukar, Munira	1892
	2	Adeoba, Benn	308
	24	Ai, Randy	15
	43	Ainslie, Paul	359
	7	Aitchison, Scott	448
	3	Alvarez, Roberto	17
	18	Alves, Paul	20288
	29	Andre, Dave	357
	20	Andreae, Mike	272
	15	Aryeh-Bain, Chani	11
	9	Augimeri, Maria	4903
	1	Ayub, Akhtar	4
	1	Baig, Arsalan	221
	18	Bailão, Ana	5731
	32	Baker, Bruce	98
	37	Balachandran, Niranjan	6
	43	Bartley, Alonzo	146
	3	Bauk, George	6
	18	Beckett, Bobby	46
	44	Beckmann, Graham	7
	15	Belkadi, Ahmed	151
	33	Bell, Paul	81
	35	Berardinetti, Michelle	3702
	28	Blackmore, David	41
	39	Blueman, Christopher	5953
	35	Bocking, Paul	348
	30	Borden, Mark	74
	40	Borenstein, Josh	16
	8	Boucher, Princess	316
	16	Boutros, Jean-Pierre	1631
	5	Bowie, Guy	36
	19	Bowman, Scott	69
	17	Bravo, Alejandra	1840
	10	Bucao, Randy	21
	2	Bueno-Bradley, Edmund	126
	1	Burale, Idil	1245
	19	Burello, Albina	19
	32	Burke, Alan	17
	26	Burnside, Jon	438
	32	Bussin, Sandra	739
	21	Bustamante, Ted	91
	4	Campbell, John	137
	2	Caravaggio, David	616
	16	Carmichael Greb, Christin	370
	4	Carnevale, Angelo	131
	33	Carroll, Shelley	10111
	20	Carty-Kegel, Stephanie	42
	11	Chalhoub, Dory	26
	7	Chambers, John	323
	44	Chhabra, Amarjeet	1006
	42	Chin, Dwayne	6
	42	Cho, Raymond	125
	4	Christensen, Niels	95
	20	Christoff, Daryl	516
	20	Chu, Terri	537
	16	Coll, Michael	1235
	15	Colle, Josh	36
	43	Colterman, Jason	390
	3	Comeau, Greg	349
	16	Conacher, Sean	108
	36	Crawford, Gary	90
	20	Cressy, Joe	2754
	1	Crisanti, Vincent	1976
	1	Crooks, Patricia	59
	9	Cusimano, Gus	120
	5	D'Aversa, Tony	14
	27	DAmours, Alain	46
	16	Darby, Charm	120
	31	Davis, Janet	223
	32	de Boer, Eric	1052
	28	Derome, Gerald	53
	5	Desilets, Raymond	32
	5	Di Ciano, Justin	115
	12	Di Giorgio, Frank	58
	7	Di Nizio, Nick	119
	27	Dichter, Benjamin	114508
	25	Diep, Kim	28
	12	Dominelli, Nick	63
	2	Domise, Andray	3626
	13	Doucette, Sarah	284
	14	Emerson, Charmain	449
	10	Epstein, David	177
	30	Farrow, Jane	2281
	3	Fenech, Peter	524
	9	Fernando, Anthony	515
	23	Filion, John	1660
	30	Fletcher, Paula	3200
	6	Ford, Russ	305
	24	Fox, Dan	3174
	29	Fragedakis, Mary	3966
	3	French, Dean	254
	24	Galea, Michael	18
	16	Gallezot, Thomas	432
	32	Garcia, Maria	444
	39	Giannini, Cozette	136
	20	Goldstein, Sam	156
	32	Graff, Brian	350
	6	Grimes, Mark	503
	44	Hall, Diana	71
	15	Harari, Eduardo	1000
	16	Heaney, Gary	32
	7	Henry-Mathieu, Keegan	856
	20	Hollings, Graham	180
	3	Holyday, Stephen	17
	25	Hostler, Tanya	59
	28	Hughes, Jonathan	185
	18	Hunt, Jolene	614
	3	Hutcheon, Annette	4
	34	Hynes, Mary	434
	33	Inthisorn, Khamphay	30
	20	Kapoor, Anshul	576
	39	Karygiannis, Jim	2319
	23	Kedzior, Carmen	4452
	40	Kelly, Norm	90
	14	Kirby, Tim	94
	20	Koehl, Albert	108
	14	Koutoumanos, Gus	39
	13	Kulish, Taras	248
	2	Lagakos, Theo	84
	41	Lai, Cynthia	41
	2	LaRocque, Luke	518
	27	Lawrance, Robin	2
	6	Laxer, Michael	412
	19	Layton, Mike	17353
	41	Lee, Chin	380
	16	Levitan, Steven	63
	39	Li, Derek	15
	20	Louie, Tonny	108
	7	Mac Donald, Chris	382
	20	MacDonald, Charles	103
	31	MacDonald, Brenda	98
	44	Maguire, Paul	182
	29	Martyn, Hank	16
	22	Matlow, Josh	375
	18	Mazer, Alex	1817
	28	McConnell, Pam	575
	27	McIver, Megan	723
	44	McKelvie, Jennifer	378
	32	McMahon, Mary-Margaret	333
	28	Melnyk, Andy	21
	16	Metter, Elana	96
	21	Mihevc, Joe	6776
	16	Mills, Terry	67
	1	Minhas, Avtar	7
	34	Minnan-Wong, Denzil	6020
	44	Moeser, Ron	799
	36	Mohebzada, Masihullah	222
	42	Mondal, Somu	918
	20	Morrison, Philip	65
	3	Moskalyk, John	98
	6	Moulder, Peggy	21
	23	Mousavi, David	172
	36	Musters, Andre	19
	8	Narain, Suzanne	144
	39	Ng, Franco	40
	44	Nielsen, Arlene	4797
	20	Novak, Sam	67
	12	Nunziata, John	736
	11	Nunziata, Frances	83
	6	O'Callaghan, Sean	55
	12	Olawoye, Lekan	590
	29	Papadakis, John	12
	31	Papadakis, George	30
	23	Park, Kun-Won	15
	26	Parker, John	204
	10	Pasternak, James	48
	28	Patel, Daniel	48
	1	Patri, Gurinder	6
	13	Pavlov, Nick	43
	13	Perez, Alex	82
	14	Perks, Gord	432
	8	Perruzza, Anthony	165
	18	Power, Derek	10
	9	Quattrociocchi, Danny	134
	28	Rama, Raj	695
	42	Ramana, Venthan	7
	25	Robinson, Jaye	89
	18	Rodrigues, Robert	136
	18	Romao, Elsa	863
	44	Ross, Richard	86
	38	Rueckert, Theodore	5
	42	Sabaratnam, Neethan	67
	5	Samac, Nikola	86
	19	Sawision, George	1188
	17	Selvam, Saeed	1197
	35	Shaikh, Saima	15
	42	Shan, Neethan	1798
	31	Sherbanowski, Janet	39
	20	Shermack, Kat	245
	38	Sidiq, Aysha	150
	8	Smitherman, Arthur	127
	26	Sparrow, David	466
	16	Spence, Paul	38
	36	Spencer, Robert	406
	27	Stone, Jordan	35
	25	Streker, Nikola	40
	5	Surma, Kinga	111
	32	Suttor, Carmel	56
	16	Tanel, Adam	204
	37	Thompson, Michael	14
	20	Thomson, Sarah	31585
	36	Tobin, Christian	117
	10	Toutchinski, Igor	62
	30	Trayes, Daniel	113
	13	Tummillo, Evan	47
	31	Turnbull, Mark	1
	18	Uddin, Mohammed	100
	35	Uddin, Shahid	15
	26	Vania, Wasim	25
	6	Vella, Tony	224
	26	Velshi, Ishrath	194
	4	Vidal-Calvet, Oscar	52
	29	Vlachos, Jimmy	25
	30	West, Liz	275
	42	Williams, Sherri-Anne	35
	16	Williams, Bob	5
	38	Winson, Kevin	54
	27	Wolvin, Rob	614
	27	Wong-Tam, Kristyn	15028
	35	Woychesko, Jason	33
	20	Wright, Nick	1411
	20	Yen, Mike	695
	28	Yilmaz, Sean	221
	16	Youssefi, Dyanoosh	505

A first look at more than 40 Toronto District School Board candidates

06 Oct 2014 | Comments

We've collected every Toronto District School Board candidate's Twitter profile photo that we could find so you don't have to visit 40+ separate websites to get a sense of who is running.

For the first time all the TDSB candidates Twitter profile photos on one page. Drop us a note in the comment section below and let us know what it says to you.

Hover over any of the photos above to find out who the candidate is and where they are running. Click on the photo for more info.

And, by the way, all of the candidate profile pages now have profile photos!

A first look at more than 200 city council candidates

01 Oct 2014 | Comments

We've collected every city council candidate's profile photo that we could find so you don't have to visit 200+ separate websites to get a sense of who is running.

For the first time all the candidates photos on one page. Drop us a note in the comment section below and let us know what it says to you.

Hover over any of the photos above to find out who the candidate is and where they are running. Click on the photo for more info. Here's an image of the photo collection above, if you'd like to share.

Help us find information on these eight candidates for city council

30 Sep 2014 | Comments

Yesterday we announced on Twitter that we now have an e-mail for each and every candidate running for school board trustee in the upcoming election. Why is this important? Well, for starters, There’s no excuse for ignoring the school board election; if you have a friend or relative with public school-aged children, it's an important vote.

Similarly, we've been striving to reach 100% coverage of city council candidates in terms of contact information. We already believe that we have the most complete open dataset of information on candidates thanks to some elbow grease and your ongoing contributions -- but we want to get to 100%! Can you help us get there?

We're missing an e-mail address for these eight candidates:

• David Byford, Ward 27

• Andi Kodanipork, Ward 43

• Walter Melnyk, Ward 5

• Rosemarie Mulhall, Ward 4

• William Murdoch, Ward 4

• Bob Murphy, Ward 22

• Francis Russell, Ward 30

• Jimmy Talpa, Ward 14

Pitching in is easy: just ask yourself "Who do I know who would know these individuals?" and then reach out and see if you can locate their contact information. A quick search on a site like Canada411 and a few phone calls can also get the job done.

If you live in one of the wards listed above, maybe you even have their flyer sitting in that pile of papers near your front door? If so, just snap a photo of it and send it out way.

Just ten minutes can make a difference! Thanks to more than 20 contributions from people just like you, we got to where we are today. Together, we can get to 100%.

More than 100 updates to council & TDSB candidate information

29 Sep 2014 | Comments

This is an exciting Monday folks: we're now less than a month away from the Toronto municipal election. In honour of the occasion, Every Candidate has added more than 100 updates to city council & school board trustee candidate information.

We continually pull information updates filed by candidates to the City of Toronto, as well as adding data provided by you (which we quickly fact-check and then add to our open data sets).

Just a quick reminder: Every Candidate is a 100% open-source & citizen-driven initiative -- we rely on individuals like you: each person who contributes a few minutes of their time helps us to maintain what we believe to be the most complete set of information on the 358 candidates for city council and the 127 candidates for school board trustee.

If you can contribute even 5 minutes of your time -- and all the tasks are easy, trust us! -- please take a look at our get involved page.

If you find this information useful, please consider getting involved. It only takes a few minutes to help!