Canadian Idol judge: Get out and vote

Ajax candidate Nancy Henry is still campaigning hard – for the removal of her opponent’s signs. For weeks, Henry has been monitoring and measuring council incumbent Renrick Ashby’s election placards, and complaining to the town that they’re too close together, on streets where they’re not allowed or too close to polling stations. She demands town staff remove them immediately – even on a Sunday.

Ashby calls her complaints a sign of desperation from a candidate who’s “playing games” rather than addressing the real issues of jobs, taxes and crime. He says he didn’t put any signs in the wrong places, and blames Henry’s supporters for moving them and trying to make him look bad.

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Hey, Farley, it’s working. People in Ajax are voting because of you.

The voting place at Ajax Community Centre was doing brisk business with a record-breaking 800 ballots cast by 5 p.m. And voters said the town’s get-out-and-vote campaign, which included a YouTube video featuring Canadian Idol judge Farley Flex and other local celebrities, was a factor.

“It worked for me, absolutely,” said Mike Murphy, who moved from Scarborough one and a half years ago. He didn’t know anything about Ajax’s politicians and hadn’t made up his mind to vote until he saw the video and “Vote. It Matters” banners hanging from lamp posts everywhere.

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They’re taking cheat sheets to the polls in Oshawa. Overwhelmed by the massive 8.5- by 14-inch ballot listing 51 choices for mayor and 10 councillors, voters apparently don’t trust their memory to put their x’s in the right places.

“People are coming in with lists because of the large slate of candidates,” city clerk Sandra Kranc observed. “They’ve obviously done their homework.”