Do you know who will be the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada on May 27? With a third of the votes already in and more trickling in every day, it is a very frustrating guessing game to determine who will win. The problem you are facing is that the people who preferred the losers are choosing the winner. It seems as though the party contest is designed to choose the mediocre.
If you are a CPC member you can vote for one of 14 candidates—even for one who has already withdrawn from the race. Never fear though, on the second series of voting, withdrawn candidates as well as the one with the fewest votes will have their second choices credited with the vote.
There are a number of candidates who will also have their votes quickly lost and their second choices will earn the support. If a voter’s second choice is dropped, their third choice will be credited with the vote. It is something like the spiral that develops around a drain. This system will continue until we have someone with more votes than everyone else combined.
But, hold fast, there is another factor to consider. Not all votes in this system are created equal. The simple way to explain this is that if there are 300 members voting in an electoral district, each membership will be worth 33.3 per cent of a vote. If there are only 50 members, each vote will be worth 200 percent of a vote. It is mind boggling. The weakest electoral districts will have more say per member than the strongest. Does that seem backward to you?
But this is how our Conservatives are choosing their new leader. If you know a Conservative Party member, you might send them a sympathy card.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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