Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario Leadership Election, 2004 - Process

Process

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives use a system similar to that used by the federal Conservative Party of Canada in its leadership election. Each provincial riding association has up to 100 Electoral Votes that will be allocated among the candidates by proportional representation according to the votes cast by party members within the riding. This is not a pure "one member one vote" system since each riding generally has equal weight. (Ridings with fewer than 100 voting party members are allocated one Electoral Vote per voting member; ridings with 100 or more voting party members are allocated 100 Electoral Votes.)

This system is designed to favour candidates who can win support across the province and win in a majority of ridings. This replicates what is necessary for a party to win a general election - though without the "first past the post" feature of elections under the Westminster system. The party will use a preferential ballot on which voters rank their choices. If no candidate wins a majority of Electoral Votes, then the third-place candidate is eliminated, and his votes are redistributed according to second-choice rankings.

Members could only vote in person on September 18, or at the September 13 advance poll, or by proxy. Mail-in, phone-in and Internet voting are not permitted. Only party members in good standing as of 6:00 p.m., EDT, August 7, 2004, were eligible to vote. According to the party, there were 61,104 eligible voters, only 25,323 of whom cast ballots for a turnout of 41.4%.

Party president Blair McCreadie announced that candidates would be under a spending cap of $1 million, which is less than the $1.5 million permitted in the last leadership contest.

The leadership election was administered by an impartial Leadership Election Committee chaired by McCreadie and co-chaired by MPP Julia Munro. The Chief Election Officer was Tom Barlow. There were four Deputy Chief Election Officers: Janet Carwardine, Barbara Cowieson, Murna Dalton and Allan Williams.