Conservative leadership: Brown’s name already printed on ballots


Although he was disqualified by the Conservative Party of Canada to become its next leader, the name of ousted candidate Patrick Brown will still appear on the ballot.

In an interview on CTV News Channel, Conservative Party Chairman Rob Batherson said they “just don’t have time to reprint” hundreds of thousands of ballot papers and still respect the deadline set by the party to announce a new leader on September 1. ten.

Last week, the party announced that around 675,000 members will be eligible to vote in this year’s leadership contest, a historic number far exceeding past leadership contests.

While the final membership verification process is still ongoing, according to party leadership spokesman Yaroslav Baran, the first batch of mail-in ballots with the six names on them have already been sent to the parties. conservative supporters who had previous memberships in the leadership. racing process.

The party is expected to continue sending batch ballot packages over the next few weeks, provided all ballots are returned to the party by September 6.

The party had an April 29 deadline for candidates to submit required fees and member signatures in order to stand for election as a verified candidate. This timing was a factor in their printing times for the ballots.

Questions about whether Brown would still be on the ballot came after the Conservative Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC) announced late Tuesday night that it had decided to disqualify Brown, citing “serious allegations of wrongdoing” that they referred to federal election authorities.

In an interview with CTV News’ Evan Solomon on Wednesday, Brown sought to defend himself against what he called “phantom” allegations, saying his campaign “did nothing wrong.” Brown also indicated that he was weighing his options to challenge his withdrawal from the race. However, Batherson told CTV News that party rules “do not provide for appealing a disqualification decision.”

It is not the first time in recent years that the party has held a leadership election with the name of a candidate on the ballot who was no longer in the running.

In 2017, then-management prospect Kevin O’Leary pulled out of the race after the ballots were printed.

“So the ballots will be distributed – as they did with Kevin O’Leary’s name on it in 2017 – and with a ranked ballot there will be a second and a third choice. This will be enforced once a candidate casts the ballot,” Batherson said Wednesday.

Despite the massive upheaval in the race, Batherson said the party has no plans to delay the process in any way and that all current deadlines will stand, including deciding the winner at an event in Ottawa on Sept. 10.

As for what Brown still appearing on the ballot may mean in terms of how members of the Conservative Party decide to cast their preferential ballot, Conservative strategist and President of Texture Communications Melanie Paradis said in an interview. on CTV News Channel it will be something to watch. Brown previously said his campaign has recruited about 150,000 members.

“It will be very interesting to see how it goes. Where are these voters going? Are the people he recruited going somewhere? Or will they fall? In which case, it would completely change the calculation of points in each constituency,” Paradis said.

“It’s a very complicated algorithm. It’s not a very simple, one member, one vote set of rules. We weighted it by driving, which makes it very difficult to predict and how it might impact the race.


With files from CTV News’ Sarah Turnbull, Mike Le Couteur and Evan Solomon