On Friday, Guelph Politico received a video of someone accessing the website “michellebowman.ca”. Michelle Bowman is a candidate running in Ward 2 in this fall’s municipal election, so one would think that if you typed in her name with the domain extension “.ca” that it would lead to her website. It doesn’t. Barely three weeks into this election, do we already need to have a conservation about the rules and ethics of running for local office?

A second source on the weekend then provided Politico with a link to a website set up by someone who was declaring themselves as a council candidate, although they had not yet filed their nominations papers. Concerning here was the inclusion of a donate button when the election rules state that you cannot collect donations, or spend donations on campaigning, until you’re a registered candidate in the mayor, council, or school board trustee elections.

So how concerned should we be about these recent develops? Is there already election skullduggery afoot less than a month into this municipal election? That’s tough to say. In so much as people are invested in knowing who wants to form the next city council and what they intend to do with that position, people are also invested in making sure they do it the proper way. Should we be guarded for more people testing the system over the next couple of months?

To learn more about where the lines are this election, we will seek out the advice of Dylan McMahon, Guelph’s city clerk and essentially the chief electoral officer for municipal elections. We turn to him with these two situations that arose over the weekend: Is it improper for someone else to own the domain of a candidate, can you raise money and campaign before you are officially a candidate, and what can you do if you have a cause for concern in the way some candidates are running?

So let’s talk about election concerns on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

If you have questions or concerns about the election or the election rules, you can go to the City of Guelph’s website or can call the clerk’s office at 519-837-5625 or send an email to guelphvotes@guelph.ca. If you want to learn more about available domain names, or learn what legal recourse you have if someone’s using your name as a domain name, you can go to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority website.

In one last note, Guelph Politico reached out to Thai Mac, the owner of Caught in Guelph, to get comment about whether or not he owns the domain “michellebowman.ca”, but he did not respond before press time.

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