In the 2007 provincial election, Ontario voters firmly rejected a scheme for proportional voting. It was a non-starter. That does not mean that the Ontario Liberal Party is not about to use a similar scheme on its own party members. Imagine a voting system that can eliminate the person with the most votes in a riding from being a delegate to the January 25-26 Leadership convention in Toronto.
It can mathematically happen. The Liberal Party in Ontario has confused the voting system for delegates to such an extent that the arguments about who can or cannot be a delegate will continue until after the convention. The voting scheme is based on the proportion of supporters for a specific candidate and the age and sex of the people wishing to attend the convention. If the age and sex of the convention hopefuls is out of balance with the choice of candidate, it is going to be tough luck!
The greatest danger is bad mathematics by the people running the leadership election meetings (LEM) on January 12 and 13. Where the party hopes to find enough mathematicians for the task is a question mark.
The first error is to ask people to mark their preference for leader separate from the choice of convention attendee. Since there are seven hopefuls in the race, there will be eight options. The eighth option will be someone called “Independent.”
Of the 16 members of the local electoral district who may attend the convention and vote on the various ballots, four must be youth. Of these four youth, one must be male, one must be female and the other two can be anything at all. Similarly, of the other 12 people, four must be female, four male and four are optional.
Now overlay those demands on the eight choices and you can understand the problem. And, by the way, did we point out that it costs anywhere from $250 to $1000 to attend this convention in the heart of Toronto. If you just park your car in that area of the city while you attend the convention, you might not have the funds to buy your car back.
And you wonder why it is so important to return control of this party to the members?
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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