How we researched this

How this was researched

Everything on this site comes from public sources: city council and committee minutes, official City of London and Government of Ontario pages, candidates' own campaign websites and social media, and news reporting. Each page shows the date it was researched, because a race in July can look different by October.

We used AI research tools to do much of the digging, working under a fixed set of editorial rules (below). AI-gathered material is checked before publish. Some claims couldn't be verified against a primary source (some news sites block automated access, and ward boundaries still await a final check against the city's official map); where that happened, the page's own list of research gaps says so plainly. Where voting records are marked primary-sourced, they were pulled from the city's official eSCRIBE meeting minutes.

Where our research came up short, we say so. We'd rather show you a gap than fake a number, so ward pages carry their own list of research gaps instead of papering over them.

The rules that bind every page

1. Every factual claim carries a source, and every page shows the date it was researched.

2. Where a candidate currently holds or has held office, their voting record is kept separate from their own words: it's a linked reference, the /votes/ scorecard, not a summary folded into their entry.

3. A candidate's entry carries only facts we can source directly: contact links, certified election results, current-officeholder status, and questionnaire answers published word for word. What they're promising is read on their own campaign site, not summarized in ours.

4. City versus provincial or federal jurisdiction is flagged honestly on every issue. A candidate promising something council can't deliver is itself a fact worth knowing.

5. Plain language throughout, written for a smart neighbour, not a policy wonk.

6. Ward issues are ordered by how directly they land on residents' doorsteps: the most immediate, ward-specific concern first, big planning files after. The ordering uses the same sourced signals (resident surveys, what candidates report hearing at doors) cited on each page. Ordering is presentation, not endorsement.

What a candidate entry is now

As of August 25, 2026, this site no longer summarizes candidates' platforms in its own words. A candidate's entry carries their name, their contact links from the City's certified list or their own campaign material, their prior London election results where the City's certified results record them, whether they currently hold the seat, and their answers to our questionnaire, published word for word.

For what a candidate is promising, read their own campaign site, linked on their entry. We stopped maintaining editorial summaries because keeping 100-plus summaries accurate against daily-changing campaign sites was beyond what a volunteer-run site can do fairly, and a stale summary is worse than none.

Sources and voting records

For voting-record scorecards, the primary source is the City of London's official meeting minutes published on eSCRIBE, where recorded votes list each member's position by name. News reporting is used as a secondary source when minutes weren't directly obtainable, and each vote is marked as primary- or secondary-sourced.

Some cells in a vote grid are filled by arithmetic rather than an explicit roll call. When the minutes name everyone who voted one way and give the tally, the remaining positions can be worked out exactly. Those cells are marked with an asterisk and explained in a footnote. Where a position couldn't be confirmed at all, the cell says so instead of guessing.

Every vote in a scorecard links to its source, gets one neutral sentence of context, and shows the same treatment for every member. Position colours only, no good/bad scoring.

A small number of secondary sources are slated for replacement with primary equivalents before election day.

Update policy

This is a stable reference, not a news site. It gets refreshed at defined moments:

August 24, 2026, when the city certifies the official candidate list, the full roster is refreshed: new candidates added, withdrawn candidates removed.

As the questionnaire goes out and answers arrive, each candidate's entry is updated the same day; the first batch of answers publishes about a week after the send, then more as they come in.

October: advance-poll locations and election-day logistics are confirmed against london.ca as the city publishes them.

Corrections

Spotted an error? Email corrections@londondecides.ca. Corrections are reviewed against sources and applied to the entry directly, and the page's research date is updated.

Candidates have the same path: any candidate can submit corrections or updates about their own entry through the same address, and verified updates are published. Fair is fair. If we got something about you wrong, we want to fix it.

Independence

This site is nonpartisan and endorses no one. It takes no funding from any candidate, campaign, or party, runs no ads, and is volunteer-run.

The strongest editorial stance it takes is identical treatment: the same fields, the same sourcing standard, and the same word-for-word treatment of every candidate's answers. Nothing on this site is meant to help or hurt any campaign, and nothing on it should be read as an endorsement.

On social media, our accounts follow every declared candidate we can find, on every platform where they have a presence, with no exceptions, so we can see what candidates are telling voters. A follow is monitoring, not endorsement. We check our follows against the city's official candidate list, and once the certified list is published on August 24 we will match it exactly. Missing a candidate, or found one on a platform we haven't? Tell us and we'll fix it the same day.