Candidates will have two more days to register for Toronto’s 25-ward municipal election if Premier Doug Ford’s new bill passes at Queen’s Park.

After 48 hours of confusion, which left some council and school board hopefuls wondering if they would be left off the ballot entirely, legislation introduced Wednesday afternoon will give them a chance to register once it becomes law. Any previous candidate who had not yet registered in a 25-ward election and any new candidates will have those two days to sign up.

That means incumbent councillors, many of them downtown progressive voices, and others who worried they would be barred from registering if the election process was changed to reflect 25 wards, will have the opportunity to be council candidates in the Oct. 22 election.

With the revised bill, now named the Efficient Local Government Act, not expected to pass before Sept. 24, there would be just 13 days between the close of nominations and the start of previously scheduled advance voting on Oct. 10.

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It remained unclear Wednesday if the bill’s timelines allow for advance voting, or even to hold the election as scheduled. The bill gives the city clerk discretion to not hold advance polling days — for people out of town on Oct. 22, or otherwise unable to vote then — if she so chooses.

In the last election, a record 161,147 Torontonians voted in advance polls over five days. That turnout was more than double the number of people who voted early in 2010.

Before this fall’s vote, the city clerk will have to get ballots printed, and ensure they are correctly tested on vote tabulators. The alternative is elections staff counting ballots by hand.

Those challenges are expected to be discussed at an emergency meeting of city council on Thursday.

If the bill passes as expected, a Toronto election campaign of less than one month would be the shortest by far since amalgamation in 1998.

Toronto’s 2014 election started Jan. 2 and the vote was held Oct. 27, making it a 299-day campaign or almost 10 months. Candidates had from Jan. 2 until Sept. 12 to register, or 254 days, and advance voting ran from Oct. 14 to Oct. 19.

Two years ago, the Liberal provincial government introduced reforms that included moving the start of election periods to May 1. If Toronto’s 2018 election had proceeded as planned with 47 wards, it would have lasted a total of 175 days and allowed 74 days between nominations closing July 27 and the opening of advance polls.

The new Bill 31 is largely the same as Bill 5, which Ford’s government introduced July 30 to cut the size of city council to 25 wards from 47.

Bill 5’s sudden change to Toronto’s election was struck down as unconstitutional by a Superior Court judge on Sept. 10.

Ford announced the same day he would invoke the Constitution’s “notwithstanding” clause to override the ruling that changing boundaries and dates mid-election infringed candidates’ and voters’ Charter rights. The new bill includes the notwithstanding clause.

The province is also appealing Justice Edward Belobaba’s ruling in court and asking to “stay” effects of that ruling, which would make a 25-ward election officially the law of the land at least until the outcome of the appeal.

Parkdale-High Park-area Councillor Gord Perks was one of at least eight incumbent councillors who had been at risk of being frozen out of the election by changing registration deadlines. He said the Ontario government’s move to re-open nominations “saves me some legal fees.”

“In my four years of serving on council with Doug Ford, I learned to always expect the unexpected,” Perks added.

The new bill also provides that anyone who signed up for the previous 25-ward election on or after Aug. 20, and before the new bill receives royal assent, is automatically registered in the new 25-ward race.

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Councillor Mike Layton, who was also at risk of being frozen out of the race, was out knocking on voters’ doors and didn’t know about the new nomination period when the Star reached him by phone.

Layton said he “never had a doubt” that he would be able to run for re-election.

“The (city) clerks have to run a fair election,” he said.

With files from Samantha Beattie and David Rider

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