[PHOTO] Seen while going off to vote yesterday (#topoli)

[rfmcdonald]

Not voting in this year's Toronto mayoral election was not an option for me. Never mind that I had abundant time to go given my schedule yesterday, but my assigned voting location--the gym of Dovercourt Public School--was just down the street from me. If my favoured mayoral candidate, Jennifer Keesmaat, did not win, it would not be because I did not bother to turn out.



This election was unusually badly organized. Lots of voters--most of the voters I saw when I came in at 7 o'clock were not on the list, and I was among their number despite living at the same address since 2007--and there were long line-ups as the inadequate number of election workers tried to process the growing lines. Responsibility for this, I think, can be fairly assigned to the provincial government of Doug Ford with its explicitly anti-democratic meddling in local politics.



Still, I voted. I hope you did too; civic engagement matters, now as always if perhaps more visibly now than in earlier quieter eras.