Door-knocking and hand-shaking, meet Twitter and Reddit.
The explosion of social media has opened up unprecedented new avenues for municipal candidates – and many are taking advantage.
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One of the most common platforms has been Twitter, where many municipal candidates have created accounts – unless, of course, they already had them.
With so many candidates and potential voters lurking in Twitter streams, candidates aren’t just using the site to send out campaign slogans; entire debates have been organized and run within Twitter’s confines.
In at least one case, a candidate even organized and held their own forum on Twitter.
Karen Scian, running for a Waterloo Region council seat in Waterloo, invited other regional council candidates to a two-hour Twitter “town hall” to be held Thursday night.
“Absolutely nobody’s attending debates for regional council. We’re attending debates as candidates, but there’s nobody there,” she said before the event.
“I’m hoping that people will join us, ask us questions and have a good conversation about what the future of the Region of Waterloo looks like.”
Waterloo mayoral hopeful Dave Jaworsky is also finding a unique way to use Twitter.
Rather than type their questions out, Jaworksy’s followers are being encouraged to write them on the ground in chalk, then tweet them to the candidate with a specialized hashtag.
By using social media, Jaworsky says he’s able to reach more people in one day than he could in a month of door-knocking.
“I love going door-to-door, but you certainly have to augment that with Twitter,” he said.
Scott Davey, the incumbent councillor in Kitchener’s Ward 1, is also a regular on Twitter – but unlike most other candidates in Waterloo Region, he’s established a presence on Reddit as well.
“It’s not limited in the way that Twitter is. You don’t have (only) 140 characters,” he said.
“Despite the fact that it’s anonymous, it tends to be a really good community in terms of solid questions.”
While some benefits of social media – like increased visibility and a more personal connection with voters – are commonly cited, the potential for controversy exists as well.
Brett Hagey, a candidate in Cambridge’s Ward 5, discovered that this week when he tweeted a “vote naked” message – and, separately, a photo of a sign at the Auschwitz concentration camp which translates to “work makes you free.”
He says both tweets were meant to use “shock value” to get people interested in the election.
“There are thousands of men and women who have fought and died to keep oppression off our shores. It’s important … to know why our democracy is so precious, and why we should not take our liberties for granted,” he said.
