Ottawa City Idol will bring some of Ottawa’s prominent community leaders together this coming Thursday evening, to go head-to-head and compete for the prestigious title of City Idol!
Ottawa City Idol candidates will share their ideas and vision on the best way to make Ottawa a great city. Following a question period, participants, both online and in-person, will vote for their preferred candidates using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Ottawa City Idol is a fun and accessible way to demonstrate what our elections and debates could look like using RCV in our future municipal elections.
Our amazing Ottawa City Idol candidates come from diverse backgrounds and will offer a number of creative ideas for Ottawa, many of which are notably absent from the current election campaign. We hope the bold visions our candidates share with Ottawa will also demonstrate the need for more fair and friendly elections through adopting Ranked Choice Voting.
Our candidates vying to be Ottawa’s City Idol:
Manjit Basi, Citizens Academy
Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Suzanne Doerge, City for All Women Initiative
Graham Saul, Ecology Ottawa
Brandon Wint, Poet
The debate will be moderated by David Reevely
Come join Ottawa123 for a fun and interactive evening that will challenge residents to think more about creating a better democracy at the local level. Light refreshments will be served, and alcohol is available for purchase.
Event Details:
WHEN: 7:30 - 9 pm; Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014 (doors open 7pm)
WHERE: Hooley's Pub; 292 Elgin Street at Gilmour
Can’t make it to the party? There’s a hashtag for that! #ottidol
Ottawa City Idol will also be live-streamed and live-tweeted so you can participate anywhere you like! Don't forget to register above so you can get a link to the stream!
Why Ottawa City Idol?
Our elections discourage a diversity of ideas in large part due to our current voting system. Some citizens are discouraged from running in elections in the first place for fear of splitting the vote with like-minded candidates. Our current voting system also also encourages candidates to negatively attack each other rather than debating compelling visions for our city. Many voters are restricted to voting strategically which deters some people from even voting.
Ottawa City Idol will foster a dialogue on the issues that are important to the city while making voting a bit more fun and engaging. While there is no silver bullet to fix all of the problems in our elections, we believe making the move to Ranked Choice Voting is a bold first step in addressing our democratic deficit.
Ottawa City Idol will offer candidates the chance to share their great ideas for the city while offering Ottawa a glimpse of what our elections could be like using a different voting system.
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