Progressive Conservatives shorten leadership ballot process

The seven candidates for the Progressive Conservative leadership are preparing for a three-week scramble for support ahead of the Oct. 22 vote.

And the scramble will be more intense thanks to a change in party rules.

The party decided with little fanfare last month that regardless of the vote numbers, a maximum of four candidates will go through to the second ballot. And only two will be on the third and final ballot if it's needed.

That makes it even more important that candidates line up PC members willing to move to them if their first choice is eliminated after the first ballot.

If you can get to be everybody's second choice, you're in a pretty good position.- Mike Allen, PC leadership candidate

"It's going to be very important to be in the game and make sure that you're a lot of people's second choice," said former Tobique-Mactaquac MP Mike Allen, one of the seven hopefuls.

"If you can get to be everybody's second choice, you're in a pretty good position."

Another candidate, MLA Brian Macdonald, saidhe's reaching out to party members because he knows many are developing a "contingency plan" if their first choice doesn't make the cut.

"You run a good campaign, you bring as many people together as possibleand those people who don't glue to you from the outset, you try to appeal to themand you do that right up until the final ballot is cast," Macdonald said.

Potentially a long day

Under the original rules, only the last-place candidate and anyone earning less than 15 per cent of the vote on each ballot was eliminated in the next round.

We wanted to make sure it concluded at a reasonable hour.- Jason Stephen, PC party president

But with seven candidates in the race, that meant it was possible, at least theoretically, for a long day of balloting.

"We wanted to make sure it concluded at a reasonable hour," said PC party president Jason Stephen.

Tories didn't want the day "to linger on, and on, and on."

The new rules mean the vote can't go past the third ballot.

The party will soon give all candidates a list of party members who registered ahead of the Sept. 21 early-bird deadline.

That will trigger an effort by all candidates to contact all the eligible PC members.

"Like every election, we're good at contacting people," Macdonald said.

"There won't be anyone there who'll be able to say they weren't contacted."

Working rival camps

Allen saidhe and other leadership candidates have already been working on rival camps.

"You could see a lot of dialogue going on at the candidate forums, with a lot of the teams talking to each other," he said.

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"I think that's one of the reasons why this has been very collegial. There's a situation where you don't want to burn any bridges with any other candidatesand try to align with people who share your views and their supporters."

Other leadership candidates declined to talk about second-ballot scenarios on Thursday.

If I were writing the rules, they'd be a lot different.- Brian Macdonald, PC leadership candidate

Macdonald, the first candidate to enter the race back in January, said he wasn't happy with the rule change, which was made by the party Aug. 26.

"If I were writing the rules, they'd be a lot different," he said.

But he added, he respects the party's authority to set and change the rules.

"If you're a candidate, you follow the rules, you stay in your lane and you go from there. I'm not concerned about what the process is as long as it's fair and everybody follows it," he said.

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Stephen said the party looked at other ways to make voting day unfold quickly, such as a preferential ballot or tabulator machines.

But he said officials decided the best way was to tweak the multi-ballot procedure, which sees several rounds of voting until one candidate gets more than 50 per cent support.

Stephen said the leadership race has generated a surge in new memberships, though he said it's too early to release a number.

"It significantly exceeded our expectations, which is a good problem to have," he said.