By Pepper Parr
October 17th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
November 25th and 26th.
An update on how the next leader of the Ontario Liberal Party is going to be chosen.
The voting by the members will take place on November 25th and 26th.
Bonnie Crombie speaking to a meeting of the Burlington Provincial Liberal Party Association.
It is being split over two days because there are a possible 80,000 ballots that will be cast.
The Burlington constituency people vote on the 25th.
The selection is being done by a ranked ballot approach instead of the first past the post – that being the first person to get more votes than anyone else.
Ranked balloting requires each person casting to determine
Who their first choice is – and if that person doesn’t get 50% + 1 then the ballots are counted again – this time using the second choice – and if none of the candidate doesn’t get the 50% +1 then they do it all over.
Given that there are now just the four candidates the results will be known after the third ballot count.
The ranked ballot counting will take place at the Metropolitan Convention Centre on December 2nd and will be streamed live.
There are still a few decisions to be made by the Steering Committee that is handling the election.
The votes were cast on either the 26th or the 27th of November – so there is nothing that can be changed..
Ranked balloting requires each person casting a ballot to determine
Who their first choice is – and if that person doesn’t get 50% + 1 then the ballots are counted again – this time using the second choice – and if none of the candidate doesn’t get the 50% +1 then they do it all over.
Given that there are now just the four candidates the results will be known after the third ballot count.
The ranked ballot counting will take place at the Metropolitan Convention Centre on December 2nd.
Ballot counting won’t be streamed live, but the on-stage programming and announcement of round-by-round results will be. Streamed on our YouTube Page (@OntarioLiberalTV)
The campaign Steering Committee has said that the ballot counting method is unconfirmed at the moment, but hand-counting may become the chosen method. That would be a disaster.
Burlington Provincial Liberal Party Association Lisa Mayeski with leadership candidate Nate Erskine Smith.
Given the mounting pressure on the Doug Ford government over the Greenbelt land swaps and the announcement that the RCMP decided they would do an investigation – we have a public that isn’t pleased with a government that may be facing charges of a criminal nature.
All four candidates met with the members of the Burlington Provincial Liberal Association. Nate Erskine Smith did fine when he met with the constituency members but didn’t do all that well during the first of the debates.
Bonnie Crombie arrived a little late at the Constituency and left hurriedly – she was booked for another meeting. Her Q&A with the Burlington people did not go all that well and has had a bumpy ride at at least one of the debates.
However, she is on the road determined to cover every riding and is posting several times a day on social media.
The One-member-one-vote system is also weighted.
Each riding association receives 100 points (OYL clubs get 50, Women’s Clubs get 5), and those points are distributed proportionally based on the RA members’ votes. Nate has more details on his site: https://meetnate.ca/faq
This overweights Northern ridings, encouraging leaders to cater more towards northern community needs. Burlington has about average voter weight.