The 2018 Toronto municipal election was held on October 22, 2018, to elect a mayor and city councillors in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Registration for candidates for the office of mayor, councillor, and school board trustee opened on May 1, 2018, and initially closed on July 27, 2018. John Tory won the mayoral election with over 60% of the vote. To account for the city's growing population, Toronto's council wards underwent a realignment, with the removal of a ward in the west end, three new wards added in the downtown area, and a new ward in North York, expanding the city to 47 wards. However, in July 2018, newly-elected Premier of Ontario Doug Ford introduced legislation to require that Toronto's municipal elections use the same ridings as it does for provincial and federal elections, thus reducing the council to 25 wards. The bill attracted controversy for its intent to change electoral boundaries in the middle of a campaign, and was struck down as unconstitutional in September 2018. However, a stay on this ruling was granted nine days later by the Court of Appeal for Ontario; the three judge panel ruled that Bill 5 is constitutional and that the previous ruling was "dubious", thus reinstating the 25-ward election. Seventeen Toronto councillors were elected with less than half of all votes cast. One councillor, Cynthia Lai was elected with approximately 27% of the votes cast. Ward boundary adjustment The Toronto City Council commissioned an independent review of its ward boundaries in order to account for predicted population growth in specific areas of the city. The consultants recommended the realignment of the city's 44 wards into 47. Under the 47 ward model, wards would not achieve voter parity until 2026 (when the population projection of 61,000 residents per ward would eventually kick in). The Supreme Court considers voter parity to be crucial to achieving effective representation. Three new wards were added in downtown, one in North York, while one was removed from Toronto's west end by consolidating 3 wards into 2. Based on the patterns of incumbents shifting to successor wards, the four "new" wards are Ward 20, Ward 21, Ward 25 and Ward 29; the ward reduction in the west end is reflected in the effective merger of what had been designated as Ward 17 and Ward 18 on the preceding map into new Ward 16. Two city councillors, Giorgio Mammoliti and Justin