OTTAWA-
Candidates have until midnight to secure party affiliations for their supporters to vote in the election for the next Conservative leader, who will replace Erin O’Toole.
The deadline marks an important milestone in the campaign and the start of a new phase in the race.
The organizing committee of the party leadership elections said late last month that it had already broken records of how many new member candidates have joined before the June 3 cut.
“The party’s membership in the last two leadership races has been about 270,000 people, of whom only 60% vote,” said veteran Conservative activist Melanie Paradis, who has remained neutral in the race.
“From what I’ve heard from party sources, the figure will now be north of 400,000. Which means we’ve probably had about 250,000 renewals and 150,000 new members.”
Leadership candidates have spent the last few months encouraging potential voters to sign up to vote. In the last few days before the deadline, they have been frantically trying to get as many followers in the voting group as possible.
But not all members are created equal, at least when it comes to the final vote. Each setup is worth a certain number of points, so candidates have had to be strategic about where their base is growing.
“Get your subscription to be able to vote to regain control of your life,” Pierre Poilievre’s campaign said in an email to people who had signed up to his mailing list, but who are not yet they had registered to be a member of the party. “Buy the subscription now, because after Friday it will be too late.”
Patrick Brown told his followers on Thursday that he had already achieved his membership goals, but still urged people on his mailing list to make sure his friends and family were registered to vote.
“I urge you to forward this email to five people you know (more if you can!) Urging them to … take out a Conservative affiliation to support my leadership campaign,” Brown’s campaign wrote in the people on your mailing list.
The names of Poilievre, Brown, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, Scott Aitchison and Roman Baber will all be in the fall voting.
Once all the possible supporters in the party have registered and these affiliations have been processed and verified, the camps will focus their attention on getting the vote and try to persuade their opponents’ supporters to change their loyalty, or at least put their name on it. second on the ballot.
Due to the classified voting system, the second choice of voters could play an important role in determining the next leader.
That’s what secured Erin O’Toole’s victory in the last leadership race when she garnered the support of the negative vote from Lewis and Derek Sloan voters.
Between the classified ballots and the points system used on election day, it can be difficult to get an idea of who is advancing in the race.
“The algorithm is wild, which is why our leaderships are so hard to predict,” Paradis said.
She hopes that once the final voter list is published, which could take a few weeks, the fields will survey potential voters on key issues. The results could report on the kind of promises voters see in the final days of the race as candidates try to get fans to change course.
The new leader will be named in Ottawa on September 10.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 3, 2022.