London is now the first Canadian city to approve the use of ranked ballots for electing municipal politicians.
Just ahead of the province's deadline of 11:59pm on May 1, city council voted 10-4 in favour of ditching the first past the post voting system for ranked ballots. Councillors Bill Armstrong, Phil Squire, Paul Hubert, Anna Hopkins opposed the motion, while Councillor Mo Salih was absent from the meeting.
"There isn't going to be a perfect system for us to move to, and if we stay with the system that we have, it's definitely not a perfect system either," said Mayor Matt Brown ahead of council's vote. "So the question is, does ranked ballots make democracy better? I think it does."
"We've got a lot of time between now and election day 2018. So, there's no reason, in my mind, to wait."
With the ranked ballot voting system, candidates are ranked by the voter in order of preference. In the event a leading candidate doesn’t get 50% of the vote, the last place candidate is taken out and their votes re-allocated to the remaining candidates, based on the second choices on those ballots.
Under the traditional first past the post system, voters in London selected just one candidate for councillor and one for mayor, and the candidate with the highest number of votes won.
City Manager Martin Hayward started off the meeting by expressing concerns that administration has about implementing the new system -- mainly the cost.
"We will be first out of the gate, that means the potential costs of developing these algorithms or the equipment [needed], could be a lot higher," he said.
Hayward said it's estimated that changing the electoral system will add an additional $500,000 to the city's election budget. However, he said the city has the option of approaching the province for funds to assist with the transition.
Councilor Armstrong voiced a number of concerns about implementing the new system, stating that a number of cities in Ontario, including Toronto, Waterloo, Kitchener and Guelph, have already decided against ranked ballots.
"All of these cities, to one degree or another, have looked at this and said no thank you," he said, "A lot of it had to do with the real cost."
Armstrong said he is also concerned about not knowing the exact price tag that will go along with implementing the new system in 2018. He added that there were too many unanswered questions surrounding ranked ballots for him to support the motion.
Supporters of a ranked ballot system have stated that it makes sure the winner has the support of the majority of voters. They also suggest it would discourage negative campaigning.
Councilor Jared Zaifman said the ranked ballot system eliminates some of the problems currently faced with first past the post, and will "empower the electorate."
"In this [last] election, I won with 39% of the vote, and frankly for me, I don't consider that a significant enough mandate. It's not 50% plus one," he said. "[The new electoral system] just gives so much more power and choice, and enables voters to really have their true preferences shown so much better."
The decision to approve the ranked ballot system reflected the results of an online public survey that was presented to council during the meeting.
The survey asked if voters would prefer choosing one candidate or three. The results showed 52% picked one candidate, while 48% said three. It also asked if voters were in favour of changing to a ranked choice ballot for the 2018 election. Half of the respondents said yes, while 44% said no and 6% weren’t sure.
The next municipal election will be held on October 22, 2018.