{"id":4045,"date":"2009-02-19T12:10:43","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T17:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2009\/02\/19\/influential-councillor-outlines-new-electoral-reform-agenda\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:35:06","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:35:06","slug":"influential-councillor-outlines-new-electoral-reform-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/19\/influential-councillor-outlines-new-electoral-reform-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Influential councillor outlines new electoral reform agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Last night I did an interview with Councillor Shelley Carroll for the next issue of Spacing<\/em>. But Carroll is one of the great gabbers at City Hall so once we’d finished the interview I was given an education on the next phase of electoral reform that Carroll wants to champion in the 2010-2014 term of city council (the current phase being eliminating corporate and union donations to candidates). I want to share the salient points of this reform proposal with Spacing Toronto readers because Carroll’s ideas, while formed, haven’t even begun to be implemented so there’s a great deal of room to have your opinions considered by the folks at City Hall who keep an eye on this blog.<\/p>\n

At present, the great equalizer in Toronto’s municipal elections is supposed to be a rebate system that allows individuals who donate money to candidates to claim a cash rebate for a percentage of their donation after the election is completed. For example, a person who donates $100 to their preferred candidate is eligible for a $75 rebate. However, that means that a donor might have to wait as much as 12 months to get their rebate and will only get it if the candidate files their paperwork properly. Although the rebate system has been lauded by election reform activists and held up as a model for 905 municipalities to use to democratize their elections, the rebate system does limit the participation of people who can’t afford to wait for their rebate.<\/p>\n

What Carroll is proposing is, she says, similar to New York City’s model of election financing. In NYC, Carroll told me that campaigns are financed through a system of grants. The grants system allows candidates to submit the donations they receive to the City at preset dates (possibly every couple of months early in the year and every week as Election Day nears) and get topped up to the same amount the City would have previously provided a rebate for. For example, if a donor makes out a cheque for $25, when the candidate they have donated to supplies their paperwork to the City the candidate will be sent an additional $75 for that donation.<\/p>\n

Carroll says that this will have three primary benefits. First, it will be easier for grassroots candidates — particularly younger candidates and women — to finance a campaign that requires tens of thousands of dollars to partake in with any hope of success. Second, as candidates file their paperwork, the City will be able to immediately list their donors online so people will know who has taken money from whom before they cast their vote. And, third, it will place more of the election audit function with the City rather than the candidates for election, which will cut down on the number of legal challenges to the audits of winning candidates.<\/p>\n

The only downside I can see off the top is that the City will have to increase the amount it budgets for election finance because more people will be encouraged to donate more money than before. But a few extra dollars to support a further democratization of the political process is an investment I’d support.<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n

Photograph by Matthew Blackett<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I did an interview with Councillor Shelley Carroll for the next issue of Spacing. But Carroll is one of the great gabbers at City Hall so once we’d finished the interview I was given an education on the next phase of electoral reform that Carroll wants to champion in the 2010-2014 term ofContinue reading “Influential councillor outlines new electoral reform agenda”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4037,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[408,31,11514,11513,667,564,22085,1276,19,391],"class_list":["post-4045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-councillor","tag-election","tag-election-finance","tag-influential-councillor","tag-matthew-blackett","tag-new-york-city","tag-politics","tag-shelley-carroll","tag-toronto","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInfluential councillor outlines new electoral reform agenda - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/19\/influential-councillor-outlines-new-electoral-reform-agenda\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Influential councillor outlines new electoral reform agenda - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last night I did an interview with Councillor Shelley Carroll for the next issue of Spacing. 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