How did London's municipal election campaign turn so nasty?

London's municipal election, forecast to be more kind and conciliatory because of ranked ballots, has instead been one of the 'nastiest' in recent memory, political watchers say. 

Ward and mayoral elections signs have been destroyed, cut in half, removed and urinated upon. 

Signs showed up questioning Ward 5 Coun. Maureen Cassidy's integrity, as well as a website dragging her affair with Mayor Matt Brown into public view again. 

Another website attacked Ward 10 Coun. Virginia Ridley, accusing her of child abuse just for taking her kid to a city hall meeting. Both websites have been taken down. It is not known who was behind them.

"It's a bit unique this year, the amount of fake campaigning that's going on. It's not even campaigning, it's fake signage, fake websites. It's causing some strife in the community for sure," said Orest Katolyk, the city's manager of bylaw enforcement. 

Tension over BRT

The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan has been the hot-button issue in the campaign. Signs and websites specifically addressing the fight have emerged, with each side accusing the other of not listening to what Londoners want. 

What has emerged are two polarized sides, with pro-BRT group Build This City squaring off with an anti-BRT group, with passionate arguments on both sides. The anti-BRT side includes a slate of candidates who all employed a local PR firm, Blackridge Strategy, which is run by Venture London project manager Amir Farahi and school board candidate Jake Skinner.

The intense debate over BRT has put the $500-million project in doubt.  

"I think it's been a particularly polarizing election because the BRT is a polarizing issue and that's caused a level of nastiness," said Anne-Marie Sanchez, head of Women and Politics, an advocacy group that aims to encourage women to run in elections. 

"I think that our political climate in general is polarized and I think people feel emboldened to show their prejudice."

Deputy Mayor Paul Hubert, who is not running for re-election, decried the creation of fake websites and "misleading, distorted" information. 

I've never seen this kind of thing before- Deputy Mayor Paul Hubert

"Campaigns are supposed to be about vision and ideas, not cheap tricks and character denigration," he said. 

Hubert said the recent hyper-partisanship of politics in the United States and to a lesser degree in Ontario and Canada, may be spilling over to London's municipal campaign. 

"I've never seen this kind of thing before," he said. 

Need to win trumping civility

Ranked ballot campaigns have been known to make elections more civil because candidates don't want to alienate voters who might not rank them No. 1, but would select them as a second or third choice. In a close election like the one London is having, second and third choices could mean the difference between winning and losing. 

"A key learning from this election is that if everyone still behaves like it's a first-past-the-post election, the results could be the same," Sanchez said. 

King's University political scientist Jacquetta Newman Londoners are still in a "first-past-the-post" mentality, with three of the four mayoral front-runners telling CBC News they won't rank their ballots. 

"It doesn't matter how altruistic they are. Fundamentally, they want to win," Newman said. 

Newman said the campaign could be nastier than four years ago because in 2014, there was a clear front-runner — eventual winner Matt Brown. His main opponent, Paul Cheng, placed a distant second. 

Bylaw officers kept busy

Bylaw officers have been dealing with infractions throughout the campaign, said Katolyk. 

Bylaw officers have been busy responding to complaints about signs that violate the Municipal Elections Act, he said. 

"We continue to respond to numerous complaints," he said. 

While debates among mayoral and ward candidates have been mostly civil, attacks on social media have been fierce, as have sexist and racist interactions with candidates campaigning door-to-door, in London and surrounding areas.