In a bizarre attempt to avoid election laws, Paula Fletcher sent an email to her constituents from Sara Ehrhardt's account. But how did her contact list get into Ehrhardt's? Or what really happened?

Paula Fletcher has been on City Council for a long time, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants to receive an email from her. On September 16, Paula Fletcher’s name appeared in the inboxes of many Torontonians with an email from her that was sickly sweet and familiar in tone as if they were old friends and comrades:

"Dear Mr ___.. As you know I made the decision not to run again in the city elections on October 26th. We have done so much together and I have loved every minute serving our community together…"

After Fletcher's overly familiar introduction, the lengthy email went on to justify Fletcher’s endorsement of Sara Ehrhardt for City Council in Toronto Danforth.

There was something strange about the email. Although the display name on the message was Paula Fletcher, the email account it came from was Sara Ehrhardt’s, the TDSB trustee that Fletcher was now endorsing for City Council.

Some people were horrified by this email, and not only because of Fletcher's tone. But why?

It turns out that there are some people in Toronto who have a strong dislike for Fletcher (and never signed up for her emails) who happen to be on Sara Ehrhardt’s TDSB contact list. They were the unfortunate victims of Ehrhardt's and Fletcher's attempt to avoid election laws.

Municipal election laws don't allow Fletcher to use City resources to campaign for herself or anyone else. So Fletcher sent her endorsement letter directly from Ehrhardt’s email account (after changing the display name to make it look like it really was from Fletcher), but that meant it was Ehrhardt’s contacts who received it, not Fletcher's, and many people on Ehrhardt’s list didn't vote for Fletcher and don't like her. So they were horrified to receive an email from Fletcher, which made Fletcher's familiar tone all the more unappealing to them.

One person we spoke to through Reddit wrote

“I felt icky when I saw Fletcher’s name in my inbox. Why was she talking to me like I was some friend of hers? I can't believe Ehrhardt was so desperate to let Fletcher use her email to evade election laws.

Another person who actually likes Fletcher but who had forgotten he had signed up for Ehrhardt’s emails said he experienced a panic attack when he saw Fletcher’s email come from Ehrhardt’s address

“I thought to myself, how did Sara Ehrhardt get my email address? For Fletcher to send me an email from Ehrhardt’s account, she must have imported her contact list from the City of Toronto database into Ehrhardt’s system (to avoid violating election laws). Or maybe there was some kind of cyber spoofing. It really scared me.”

(Ehrhardt denied importing Fletcher's contact list into her account)

This is not the first time that Fletcher and Ehrhardt have been accused of foul play in Sara Ehrhardt’s attempt to get elected as City Council member for Ward 14 (Toronto-Danforth).

Fletcher and Ehrhardt raised suspicion when Fletcher withdrew from the election on August 19th (the second last day of the registration period), only for Ehrhardt to register the very next day. It is speculated that the long-time incumbent Fletcher stayed in the race until the last day in order to deter strong candidates from running, and ultimately to make it easier for Ehrhardt to get elected. Once Ehrhardt filed her papers, she got several big endorsements within a matter of days, and Peter Tabuns even endorsed her on the day of her registration. All of this raised further suspicion that she had been wheeling and dealing with Fletcher and others behind the scenes before entering the race.