Cities and towns across Ontario are waking up to newly elected city councillors and mayors today. Campaign season has finally come to a close and the votes have been counted.
In Toronto, more votes were counted than usual thanks to a heated race for mayor and nine races for concillor that didn’t involve an incumbant. Having new blood and a variety of choice is a good way to galvanize voter turn-out and almost half of registered voters cast ballots (which is good for municipal elections).
Related story: Ontario city clicks with e-Democracy
Another good way to eradicate voter apathy is to inform and educate them. Young independent developer Gabriel Grant did just that when he created iPhone app “Toronto Votes 2010” to promote the Toronto elections. Grant wanted to solve the problem of helping voters figure out what ward they lived in, who was running for city councillor in that area, and why they might vote for those candidates or not. The app also provided access to candidates using Twitter and news feeds about the various races.
Grant created the app for a Hack-a-Thon event hosted by JBB Mobile. This video comes courtesy of our friends at Computerworld.