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.

Questionnaire publication rules

Every candidate gets the same five questions, and every answer is published word for word. The site never edits an answer. These rules, adopted September 1, 2026 before the questionnaire went out, cover the rare case where an answer is not published at all. Each is applied identically to every candidate, and every use of one is visible on the candidate’s page.

1. Published whole, as sent. Nothing is cut, trimmed, translated, or reformatted. Answers run in the language they were written in, as plain text: web addresses appear as text, not links, and images, attachments, and formatting are not published.

2. Keep answers to a reasonable length, no more than 150 words each. An answer over 150 words is not shortened by the site. It is held back whole and the candidate is asked for a version within the limit.

3. No unsourced factual accusations about named candidates, officials, or private people. Naming an opponent is fine, and so is disagreeing with their policy. Stating as fact that a named person did something wrong, with nothing checkable behind it, is not. The source travels with the answer.

4. No hate, harassment, or targeting of private individuals.

5. Holding back is slow, visible, and reversible. No decision is made the day an answer arrives. The candidate is told within two days which rule applied and may resubmit at any time; a resubmission that meets the rule is published. Their page reads, in the same words for everyone: "An answer was received on [date] but not published under publication rule N. The candidate may submit a replacement at any time."

6. Only from the candidate, always dated. Answers are accepted only from the email address on the candidate’s certified listing, or a campaign address they have confirmed from it once. The page shows the date the answers arrived. If the candidate later replaces them, the newest version shows with its date, and earlier versions are not published.

7. Never backward. These rules apply from the day they are published. Any rule added later applies only to answers received after it is posted, and the addition is logged on the Updates page.

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.

Candidate meetings and debates are listed on the meetings page exactly as their organizers published them, each linked to the organizer's own page, with any event that rests on a single source labelled as unconfirmed. Questionnaires run by other organizations are linked from the questionnaire page as whole indexes, never as links to one candidate, so every candidate gets the same treatment.

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.

The questionnaire went out September 3, 2026. As 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.

Why this site asks you to vote

This site takes no side on who should win. It takes one side on whether you should show up. In London’s 2022 election, 25.5% of eligible voters chose the mayor and all 14 councillors, a record low, and Ward 13 was decided by 34 votes. When that few people decide for everyone, the outcome belongs to whoever organized, not to the city.

So every page here ends the same way: here is what council actually controls, here is what the candidates say in their own words, here are the dates, now go. The encouragement is always to vote, never to vote a certain way. A turnout message that favoured one side would be an endorsement with extra steps, and it would not appear here.

The same rule holds for our social media posts. They are built to send a reader to a ward page, a voting date, or a candidate’s own answers, and they close on election day, October 26, not on a name.