The Guelph municipal election has been rife with campaign negativity. Around town and on various social media sites, opinions about the election are plentiful.

Ray Mitchell has shown his disgust for the election through window displays at his store, Dis-a-Ray.

“The voter is being screwed; that they have no choice no matter who they vote for it’s going to be the same old, same old,” Mitchell said.

Some candidates have taken offence to his displays, but Mitchell says they are meant to be humorous.

A parody twitter account from outgoing councillor Ian Findlay has also been called out for being inappropriate. The account, called the Guelph Sausage Party, has tweeted things like “Politics is a full contact sport. You need to be able to take it like a man. WE ARE #MasterDebaters #sausageparty”

“It’s a parody of Grassroots Guelph, who’s a local group who’s been quite critical and quite vocal and basically doing a character assassination of this term of council, of the mayor and councillors,” Findlay explained. Findlay says the twitter account is supposed to be funny,

“There may be some confusion, but I’m confident that Guelphites will understand what’s going on,” Findlay said.

In Guelph, reaction to the election is mixed.

“If they’re going to run for office and put themselves out there… everybody has a right to have an opinion about those people and express them,” said Gailen Lannign, a resident of Guelph for 41 years.

“It’s kind of unnecessary, and it detracts from the real debate which is why are we voting for people rather than ideas?” asked Zachary Ramsay.

Either way, all the mudslinging will come to an end on October 27th.