Over 9000 people used the municipal iteration of the site during the 2018 election and the project was featured in the Waterloo Region Record, CBC KW, CBC News Network and Code for Canada’s 2019 Showcase.
Waterloo Region Votes is a project of CivicTechWR, a local group that attempts to improve the lives of residents in Waterloo Region through civic technology.
You can join us! Email us at civictechwr.wrvotes@gmail.com and we will get you connected to our Slack.
No. According to the Ontario government definition of a third party advertiser, waterlooregionvotes.org is not a third party advertiser. This website does not support or oppose any particular candidate; it exists to increase voter engagement.
This site is manually curated. Broadly speaking, we link to media items that help voters learn about their candidates and decide which ones to support. There are some judgment calls involved, but here are our rules of thumb:
“Opinion” pieces are an especially fuzzy area. We do not link to every opinion piece we encounter. There are good reasons to read opinion items with a skeptical eye. Opinions pieces are often authored by pseudo-anonymous people. Sometimes opinion pieces are written by a person associated with a particular campaign, or somebody who pretends to be neutral but has a strong agenda. Sometimes they contain statements that are hyperbolic or incorrect. Opinion pieces can still be useful, but do not rely upon them too heavily. They often illustrate conversations and controversies that come up during the campaign.
Similarly, you should exercise caution when reading endorsement lists. Say the Society for Pineapple on Pizza (SPoP) endorses Candidate A. This means that SPoP believes Candidate A to be more closely aligned with its goals than other candidates. It does not mean that Candidate A actually supports SPoP more than non-endorsed candidates. It does not mean you should automatically vote for Candidate A if you support pineapple on pizza; nor should you automatically reject Candidate A if you oppose it. One of the nice things about municipal elections is that voters from very different political orientations often end up supporting the same candidate. Whether you support or oppose SPoP, looking through its endorsement list can give you a rough sense of which candidates might align with your views.
This website does not endorse the content of any particular linked material, or any particular candidate. For example, we are happy to link to endorsement lists published by groups opposed to each other.
If we do not see a particular resource we won’t be able to link to it. If you see something we have missed, please send it along! We do not promise to link everything we are sent, but we will consider it all.
Use the site! Learn about the election so you can cast an informed vote. If there are aspects of the site that are confusing or misleading, let us know.
Spread the word! Encourage your friends, family, and social media contacts to use this site, especially if they are not engaged in municipal politics already. There are convenient sharing links at the bottom of each page on the site.
Improve the content! Are we missing information about candidates, events, questionnaires or news coverage? Contact us at and submit it to the site. Crowdsourcing resources helps improve the site for everyone. We currently could really use help with: