CENTRE WELLINGTON – Shawn Watters’ mayoral win could be chalked up to having larger margins of victory in key Elora-area wards over opponents based on election data.
Watters was elected the new mayor of Centre Wellington with 4,105 votes followed by Neil Dunsmore in second with 3,417 and Bob Foster in third with 1,529.
Election data which broke down the mayoral vote based on Centre Wellington’s wards showed Watters had key wins in Wards 1 and 2 which make up Elora and the surrounding rural regions.
Watters lives in Elora.
The mayor-elect was way ahead in Ward 1, getting 1,170 votes which was more than half of the total 2,122 cast in the ward. Dunsmore was nearly 500 votes behind with 688 votes and Foster nearly 1,000 down at 255.
It was a similar story in Ward 2 with Watters getting 684 votes, 400 ahead of Dunsmore who got 272. Foster received 134 in this ward.
Dunsmore fared a little better in Fergus but not by as big of a margin Watters saw in Elora.
He received 792 votes in Ward 3, which was just a little more than Watters who got 767 although more than double what Foster received.
Dunsmore fared a little better in Ward 4, where he formerly sat as councillor, where he got 815 votes over Watters’ 604 and Foster’s 329.
Things were more split in Wards 5 and 6, which encompass a small part of Fergus but mainly the Belwood and former West Garafraxa area.
Watters took Ward 5 by about 100 votes over Dunsmore with 449, but Dunsmore was on top in Ward 6 by 50 votes with 319.
In Ward 50 — an alignment anomaly created by the Ontario Municipal Board in 2010 where an area of Ward 5 electors vote for a different county councillors than the rest of the ward — Dunsmore edged out slightly ahead with 179 compared to Watters with 158 and Foster with 89.
