Meaford is looking at asking its residents to decide on a fundamental change on how it elects municipal politicians.
Municipality of Meaford councillors passed a staff recommendation at their Oct. 19 meeting to enact a by-law to submit a question to electors on the 2022 ballot regarding the use of ranked choice voting in 2026, following a public meeting to be held for the purpose of obtaining feedback on the proposed referendum.
But, it may end up being moot as the provincial government is already moving to take the ranked ballot option off the table for municipalities in the next civic election.
Ranked choice ballots are a marked shift from traditional first-past-the-post voting.
Instead of choosing one candidate for open positions – such as Mayor, Deputy Mayor and councillors – voters instead order a number of candidates in order of preference.
London was the only Ontario municipality to use ranked ballots in the 2018 municipal elections. Kingston and Cambridge are among a handful of other municipalities that planned to shift to the voting method for 2022.
However, it is now uncertain if municipalities will even have the option to hold ranked ballot elections moving forward. The Ontario government under Premier Doug Ford moved last week to revoke power granted to municipalities to hold ranked ballot votes in the next civic election.
A new bill introduced by the Progressive Conservatives includes changes to the Municipal Elections Act to remove the ranked ballot option for municipal council elections in 2022.
A news release from the provincial government says the move would make voting consistent across federal, provincial and municipal elections.
The province also indicated the timing is not right to allow municipalities to use a different voting system.
A staff report by Meaford’s Clerk and Director of Community Services Matt Smith explains the ranked ballot system varies when used for single-seat and multi-seat elections.
In a single-seat race where only one candidate is elected – such as Mayor or Deputy Mayor – voters rank candidates in order of preference and after all the first choices are counted if one has more than 50 per cent of the vote then they are elected.
If no candidate has a majority, the one is last place is eliminated and, according to Smith’s report, votes cast for that person are re-distributed to the candidates listed as the second preference. This process continues until one candidate has achieved a majority (50 per cent of the total votes).
Multi-seat elections for councillor positions do not require 50 per cent of the vote, but instead candidates must meet a threshold defined by the total number of votes and number of available seats to be elected.
Coun. Paul Vickers expressed concern with the potential overhaul to the municipal voting method being put directly to residents of the community. Specifically, because it could be a binding decision made by the electorate.
“If there’s some misunderstanding, will it be an accurate reflection on the people’s wants and ideas,” Vickers wonders. “When I felt like I still had a little bit of control over it that I could maybe nay-say it at the end, I was comfortable with it.”
Smith’s report explains ballot questions posed to residents can be binding when at least 50 per cent of the electorate turns out to vote on it.
Deputy Mayor Shirley Keaveney expressed a contrasting view, calling this an opportunity to reach out to the residents to allow them to be educated and understand what ranked choice voting is all about and to make that decision.
“It is their election,” Keaveney says. “Were it up to me personally, my decision would be different. But I feel strong this is the right thing to do to go to the people and allow them the opportunity to make the decision, to make the choice.”
Smith notes while council passed their resolution it is not bound to put the ranked ballot question on the 2022 ballot yet. He told councillors a public meeting will likely be held sometime in the spring of 2021 and then a bylaw would come back to council to decide if they want to proceed with putting it on the ballot.
