James Pasternak won his bid to become councillor of Ward 10 with only 19% of the popular vote. Only 5% of the Ward's population voted for him, while many stayed home or were not eligible to vote.
“It's definitely a disappointing result for the other 81% of people in the race” said Desmond Cole, an advocate for voting reform.
Cole works with Ranked Ballot Initiative Toronto (RaBIT), a group that wants voters to mark their top three choice on the ballot in order of preference. They believe this would be fairer and more democratic than the current “first past the post” system, which allows candidates to be elected with a small percentage of their constituents supporting them.
Four of the twelve candidates running in North York's Ward 10 received over 15% of the vote, allowing Pasternak to win with only 19.16% of voters supporting him.
Pasternak had around 5% of the Ward's population vote for him (according to the population in the 2006 Census). However this figure includes those who are not allowed to vote because they are not Canadian citizens or because they are under 18. There is no way to determine what percentage of eligible voters supported him.
Breakdown of Ward 10 Data:
Population in 2006 Census: 61,580
Registered voters before election day: 34,784
Votes cast: 16,491
Votes for James Pasternak: 3,159
Percent for each candidate:
JAMES PASTERNAK - 19.15%
NANCY OOMEN - 16.83%
BRIAN SHIFMAN - 15.96%
IGOR TOUTCHINSKI - 15.79%
KONSTANTIN TOUBIS - 11.44%
MAGDA GONDOR BERKOVITS - 5.66%
JARRED FRIEDMAN - 5.15%
JOSEPH COHEN - 3.24%
ERIC PLANT - 2.15%
EDWARD ZARETSKY - 1.97%
ROBERT FREEDLAND - 1.47%
DRAGO BANOVIC - 1.12%
