In 2016 the Ontario Government passed legislation which allows municipal governments to use
Ranked Ballots.
(link to government's informational website)
Ranked Ballots.
(link to government's informational website)
What are Ranked Ballots and how do they work?
This short video illustrates a Ranked Ballot election
|
What if there is more than one winner?
In Guelph we have two councillors per ward so electoral races have more than one winner. This situation (multi-member elections) is very common in Ontario and the Ranked Ballot legislation takes this into consideration. From the voter's perspective, nothing changes. Your ballot looks exactly the same as a single-member election (eg. mayor) and you still rank the candidates in order of preference.
How the ballots are counted is a bit different. The winning candidates do not need to get 50%+1 votes to win, but rather they need to reach the "majority threshold". The threshold depends on the number of winners according to the mathematical formula shown below: |
Counting ballots in a multi-member election
|
This short video illustrates a Ranked Ballot election with multiple winners