London gears up for Canada's first ranked ballot election

City staffers are getting ready to hold mock elections to test the software and hardware required to run Canada's first ranked ballot municipal vote.

And others are looking at London as the city inches closer to the Oct. 22 election date.

"We are the focal point, not only for municipalities in Ontario, but also across Canada. They're watching," said city clerk Cathy Saunders, whose job is to quarterback the election and the new voting system.

The city has secured a vendor to run the vote and has warned that counting ballots might take longer than usual.

The vendor will supply the tabulators, which will be used to count the votes, as well as the software used to do so, Saunders said in an interview on CBC Radio's London Morning.

Saunders and her team will explain the ranked ballot system this Thursday to the Urban League of London at the Goodwill Centre at 7 p.m.

City staff will hold a few mock elections, where staff will use random names and randomly rank ballots to make sure everything is working with the tabulators and the software.

The fact that the city holds elections for school board trustees during the municipal election, and that those votes are not ranked, adds an "extra layer" to the process of tabulating the votes.

"The tabulators have to have specific software to allow the ballots to be tabulated and ranked," Saunderssaid.

How it works

In the current first-past-the-post system, the person who gets the highest percentage of votes wins.

In the new ranked ballot system, Londoners will mark their top three choices, in order of preference.

If one candidate doesn't have 50 per cent plus one of the votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the ballots are counted using the next candidate choice.

The process is repeated until a candidate with 50 per cent plus one is chosen.

Teaching and learning

Kingston and Cambridge have both been very interested in how things go in London, Saunders said.

There are also municipalities from Alberta and Nova Scotia asking questions about everything from what software the city is using to how officials are trying to inform Londoners about how the vote works.

"Most of them ask us about our process, how we got a vendor, what challenges we have had and how we move forward," Saunders said.

City staffers are looking to Minneapolis, which has run a number of ranked ballot elections, for guidance. Already, London's advisory committees elect members using ranked ballots, Saunders said.

What will happen on election day?

There are about 200 polling stations in the city.

There will be a vote tabulator at each of the polls.

Londoners will rank the candidates on their ballots for ward councillor and for mayor. They'll insert their vote into the tabulator.

The tabulator reads and retains the information on the ballot until the end of the night.

When polls close, the tabulators are activated and the votes are counted.