Even if rules were broken in Ward 14 race, there will likely be few or no consequences, expert says

A Hamilton-based political expert says even if illegal campaign tactics were used in the race to becomeWard 14 councillor, it's likely little, if anything,will be done about it.

"When it comes to bylaws, it's very, very rare," said Chris Erl,a postdoctoral fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University in the department of politics and public administration.

"It's usually a slap on the wrist."

Kojo Dampteylost to councillor-elect Mike Spadafora by 79 votes the city's tightest race.

Damptey said he plans to request a recount because of how close the race was, polling station issues and alleged violations by the Spadafora campaign.

Dampteyalso said Spadafora's team placed election signs in unauthorized locations and sent voters a robocall that falsely stated Spadafora had the mayor's endorsement.

Spadafora's team says any issues with election signs were fixed and they thought they had the mayor's support when the robocall went out.

The mayor's office said while Spadafora did speak to the mayor about an endorsement through a third party, the mayor never gave him one.

The city says the bylaw department received complaints but never issued charges against Spadafora.

Finance rule violations are taken more seriously

"The city usually doesn't focus too intensely on those sorts of issues," Erl said.

"The real issue is if a candidatehas broken finance rules because those are established by the province and that's really the only instance where we see a candidate having anything serious happen."

Erl points to former mayor, Larry Di Ianni.

Di Iannipleaded guilty to six charges of election fundraising violations after illegally accepting money for his 2003 campaign.

He maintained the violations were honest mistakes while agreeing todonate $4,500 to charity and write an essay for a Canadian magazine about municipal issues to help others learn from the situation.

Former Toronto councillorJim Karygiannis was removed from city councilfor overspending during the 2018municipal election.

"Nothing like that is going to happen in this instance," Erl said.

"The speed with which campaigns are run mean that mistakes will be made, it's just when those mistakes venture into the financial realm that there are serious implications."