Edmonton Election 2013: Update #10

We held another #yegvote Hangout last night at EdmontonPolitics.com, with special guests Chris LaBossiere and Patricia Misutka. We had a great discussion about the mayoral race, touched on a few of the ward races, and gained some insight from their experience into what candidates can expect for the weeks ahead:

It’s hard to believe that we’re just days away from the election! As a result, this will be last update before we find out who the successful candidates are. Here’s my latest election news roundup:

• Looking for information on what ward you’re in, who your candidates are, and where to vote? Check out the new tool at ShareEdmonton.
• Advance voting continues until 5pm tomorrow! Consider voting after you pick up your veggies at the City Market which has now moved to City Hall for the winter. The first week of advance voting saw a much stronger turnout than in 2010.
• A new poll done by Leger shows Don Iveson with a significant lead over his competitors. The poll found “54 per cent of the decided respondents back Iveson, compared to 23 per cent for Karen Leibovici and 19 per cent for Kerry Diotte.” You can now ingest your grain of salt.
• Then there’s this survey from the Edmonton Sun which also shows Iveson with a sizeable lead, this time over Kerry Diotte.
• With just a few days to go, campaigns are turning their attention toward get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. Door-knocking and rides to polling stations are common. Here’s Scott McKeen’s page for instance. On Wednesday evening, Don Iveson held a rally for supporters (he wrote about it here).
• CBC hosted a forum for mayoral candidates on Wednesday at their downtown location over the lunch hour. Sounds like there was some controversy over comments made by Kerry Diotte. They’ve also got a collection of questions that people sent in for the mayoral candidates.
• David Staples endorsed Karen Leibovici for mayor yesterday. “We need the surest, strongest hands to steer us to our new destination,” he wrote.
• Don Iveson released a growing list of endorsements, with names such as Doug Goss and Stanley Milner offering their support. He also posted about poverty and homelessness, did an AMA on Reddit, and shared his policy on the environment.
• This a pretty impressive number if true: Karen Leibovici says 19,000 Edmontonians participated in a telephone town hall on Thursday evening. It was Leibovici’s third such event.
• Karen was also busy this week tackling the Terwillegar Towne controversy, releasing a new video, and releasing a list of 160 endorsements. Among those on the list is former mayor Bill Smith, well-known businessman Sam Abouhassan, and outgoing Ward 6 councillor Jane Batty.
• Amazingly, Kerry Diotte has only posted one thing on his blog since October 8 – photos of the CBC mayoral forum. He continues to highlight that he wants to get out and listen to people’s concerns, but surely you need to do something with that information at some point! UPDATE: His campaign reached out to me to say that his platform was posted on October 11, but the page is undated so I have no way to verify that.
• Here’s another great column from Omar Mouallem – Experience or Entitlement: The Hubris of Karen Leibovici.
• Planning your election night party? You’ll need some food, such as Brownstone Brownies or Chicken Pot(hole) Pie.
• The latest episode of the Journal’s political podcast is now available. David Staples, Graham Thomson, Paula Simons and Sarah O’Donnell discuss the mayoral race, among other topics.
• In case you missed it, CBC did a live chat with mayoral candidate Josh Semotiuk.
• Think this election has been a boring one? Think again, says Jen at City and Baby. “I have not seen an election in my time that is so critical to the future of the city.”
• If you’re looking for a quick overview of the key issues each mayoral candidate wants you to consider, Global has you covered.
• Here’s a few reasons that supporter and volunteer David Ackerman is voting for Don.
• We lament the lack of youth engagement in politics, and then when some youth decide to get involved, we criticize them. Such a shame.
• Speaking of youth engagement, NextGen’s Candi{date} events were not well attended. On the other hand, interVivos says young professionals are engaged.
• Here’s a video interview the Canadian Chinese Times did with mayoral candidate Kristine Acielo.
• The Journal reports that Michael Diamond, a key organizer in Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s last campaign, is now volunteering with the Leibovici campaign. His tweets in support of the campaign go back a couple of weeks.
• Here’s a post on electoral energy. “Running for office is one way to be an evolutionary agent for your city. Each candidate plays a critical role in how the city speaks for itself.”
• If you’re looking for some entertainment, there are a bunch of new Edmonton City Council Wrestling videos up on YouTube. I have no idea how much time it took to produce those, but it must have been significant.
• From Gig City: Eleven Edmonton election embarrassments.
• Here are some new candidate responses to The Local Good’s questionnaire: Brian Deacon in Ward 8, Sean Amato in Ward 1, Ray Bessel in Ward 10, Rob Pasay in Ward 1, Ben Henderson in Ward 8.
• Ryan Hastman has some new candidate profiles for you to read: Bryan Anderson in Ward 9, and Jamie Post in Ward 1. He has also profiled St. Albert candidate Malcolm Parker and Spruce Grove candidate Wayne Rothe.

Also, let me quickly plug the ShareEdmonton results page, which will be updating live on Monday night. You can see historical election results here.

You can follow Edmonton Election news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegvote and you can see my coverage here. Also be sure to check out the #yegvote flipboard for curated election-related stories on a daily basis.

What have I missed? Let me know!

Please get out and vote and encourage your friends and family to do so as well!

Disclosure: I’m actively volunteering for Don Iveson’s mayoral campaign.