In the
parliamentary politics of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, one member, one vote (OMOV) is a method of selecting
party leader
In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a political ...
s, and determining party policy, by a direct vote of the members of a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
. Traditionally, these objectives have been accomplished either by a
party conference
The terms party conference (UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party membe ...
,
party convention
The terms party conference (UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party memb ...
, vote of
members of parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
, or some form of
electoral college. OMOV backers claim that OMOV enhances the practice of democracy, because ordinary citizens will be able to participate. Detractors counter that allowing those unversed in the issues to help make decisions makes for bad governance.
Canada
The first OMOV
leadership selection process in Canada was held by the
Parti Québécois
The Parti Québécois (; ; PQ) is a sovereignist and social democratic provincial political party in Quebec, Canada. The PQ advocates national sovereignty for Quebec involving independence of the province of Quebec from Canada and establishin ...
, ending on 29 September 1985.
In English-speaking Canada, the principle of OMOV has for years been a major commitment of
Vaughan L. Baird. Long a proponent of the election process that empowers all members of a party to choose their leaders, Baird was instrumental in having the provincial constituency of
Morris
Morris may refer to:
Places
Australia
*St Morris, South Australia, place in South Australia
Canada
* Morris Township, Ontario, now part of the municipality of Morris-Turnberry
* Rural Municipality of Morris, Manitoba
** Morris, Manitob ...
,
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
successfully put forward the principle of OMOV to the provincial
Progressive Conservative Party on 5 November 1985. Immediately after the Morris victory, Baird wrote to every national and provincial party in Canada and urged them to do the same. Soon after, the
Manitoba Liberal Party
The Manitoba Liberal Party (french: Parti libéral du Manitoba) is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late 19th century, following the province's creation in 1870.
Origins and early development (to 1883)
Origina ...
adopted the principle.
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
PCs used the method in electing
Ralph Klein
Ralph Philip Klein (November 1, 1942 – March 29, 2013) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 20 ...
as their new leader in December 1992.
The
Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba
The Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba (french: Parti progressiste-conservateur du Manitoba) is a centre-right political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is currently the governing party in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, after winnin ...
adopted the process in early 1987, but the party hierarchy later had it revoked. Though again adopted by the party in 1994, OMOV was revoked a second time in November 1995. Finally, on November 17, 2001, with only three votes in opposition, OMOV was passed by the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba.
Also in 1995, the
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party (NDP; french: Nouveau Parti démocratique, NPD) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* t ...
moved some way towards OMOV when they developed a series of regional primary elections prior to their convention. In the subsequent contest, the party went further adopting a modified OMOV process for the
2003 NDP leadership election in which the vote was calculated so that ballots cast by labour delegates had 25% weight in the total result, while votes cast by all party members on an OMOV had a weight of 75%. When the federal Liberal government changed the election finances law, soon after
Jack Layton
John Gilbert Layton (July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011) was a Canadian academic and politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2003 to 2011 and leader of the Official Opposition in 2011. He previously sat on To ...
won the NDP's leadership in the modified OMOV election on January 23, 2003, the party implemented full OMOV for its next leadership convention. The Ontario NDP does not use full OMOV for its leadership elections -- the Party Constitution (Article 8) provides for a 25% weighting of delegate votes from affiliated unions and locals.
The
Bloc Québécois
The Bloc Québécois (BQ; , "Québécois people, Quebecer Voting bloc, Bloc") is a list of federal political parties in Canada, federal political party in Canada devoted to Quebec nationalism and the promotion of Quebec sovereignty movement, Que ...
first used OMOV in its
1997 leadership election.
In 1991, the
Alberta Progressive Conservatives
The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta (often referred to colloquially as Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta) was a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta that existed from 1905 to 2020. The party ...
changed its rules for selecting a party leader, moving from a traditional delegate-based
leadership convention {{Politics of Canada
In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader.
Overview
In Canada, leaders of a party generally rem ...
to an OMOV system.
[Ted Morton]
Leadership Selection in Alberta, 1992-2011: A Personal Perspective
''Canadian Parliamentary Review'' Vol. 36, number 2 (2013). Four party leaders were chosen using this system:
Ralph Klein
Ralph Philip Klein (November 1, 1942 – March 29, 2013) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 20 ...
(1992);
Ed Stelmach
Edward Michael Stelmach (; born May 11, 1951) is a Canadian politician and served as the 13th premier of Alberta, from 2006 to 2011. The grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Stelmach was born and raised on a farm near Lamont and fluently speaks ...
(2006);
Alison Redford
Alison Merrilla Redford (born March 7, 1965) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician. She was the 14th premier of Alberta, having served in this capacity from October 7, 2011, to March 23, 2014. Redford was born in Kitimat, British Columbia ...
(2011); and
Jim Prentice
Peter Eric James Prentice (July 20, 1956 – October 13, 2016) was a Canadian politician who served as the 16th premier of Alberta from 2014 to 2015. In the 2004 federal election he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a candidate ...
(2014).
However, the Alberta PC party ended this system in 2016 after OMOV came under criticism.
The
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada (french: Parti conservateur du Canada), colloquially known as the Tories, is a federal political party in Canada. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the two main right-leaning parties, the Progressive Con ...
uses a weighted OMOV system in which all ridings are accorded an equal number of points and those points are distributed to candidates proportionately to how party members in that riding vote. The
Canadian Alliance
The Canadian Alliance (french: Alliance canadienne), formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (french: Alliance réformiste-conservatrice canadienne), was a centre-right to right-wing federal political party in Canada that existed u ...
used a pure OMOV system but in merger negotiations with the
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC; french: Parti progressiste-conservateur du Canada) was a centre-right federal political party in Canada that existed from 1942 to 2003.
From Canadian Confederation in 1867 until 1942, the ...
it was agreed to adopt the weighted system used in the
1998 Progressive Conservative leadership election
The 1998 Progressive Conservative leadership election was held on October 24 and November 14, 1998 to choose a successor to Jean Charest. This was the first time the Progressive Conservatives used a one member, one vote system to choose a leader ...
in order to encourage leadership candidates to seek support across the country.
In 2009, the
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' ...
adopted a weighted membership vote in which each riding counts equally in the final tally. This is not a one-member, one-vote system because, by definition, members have a variable number of votes depending on the riding they live in. However, it is similar to one member, one vote in that every party member is entitled to cast a ballot. The
2009 convention was conducted according to the old rules. However, as this convention did not feature a contested race but was a ratification of
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Grant Ignatieff (; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a histo ...
's leadership, the last example of a full-blown delegated federal leadership convention being the
2006 convention that elected
Stéphane Dion
Stéphane Maurice Dion (born 28 September 1955) is a Canadian diplomat, academic and former politician who has been the Canadian ambassador to France and Monaco since 2022 and special envoy to the European Union since 2017. Dion was Leader of ...
.
United Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, the methods of selecting party leaders gradually developed as parliamentary parties took shape and grew more rigid over time, in some cases many decades after their counterparts elsewhere in the Commonwealth – for example, the Conservative Party did not adopt a formal method for choosing its leaders until 1965. Traditionally,
members of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
have usually played a major role in selecting party leaders, based largely on the belief that since a leader had to work closely with his or her parliamentary party, their views on who the leader should be had to be paramount. In recent years, all major parties have implemented reforms to allow ordinary party members a say in the choosing of a new leader, while still allowing MPs a central role in the leadership selection process.
Liberal Democrats
The
Liberal Democrats are the most longstanding example of a national UK party using the one-member, one-vote voting system. It has been used since the party's foundation in 1988.
Unlike both the
Labour Party Conference
The Labour Party Conference is the annual conference of the British Labour Party. It is formally the supreme decision-making body of the party and is traditionally held in the final week of September, during the party conference season when the ...
and
Conservative Party Conference
The Conservative Party Conference (CPC) is a four-day national conference event held by the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It takes place every year around October during the British party conference season, when the House of Commons is ...
, every member of the Liberal Democrats who attends the
Liberal Democrat Conference
The Liberal Democrat Conference, also known inside the party as the ''Liberal Democrat Federal Conference'', is a twice-per-year political conference of the British Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in the UK by the number of ...
, in person or Online, has the right to vote in policy debates, under a one member, one vote system.
Rather than having a 'runoff' for leadership contests, the Liberal Democrats use the
Alternative Vote
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of Ranked voting, ranked preferential Electoral system, voting method. It uses a Majority rule, majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referr ...
system of preference voting. Liberal Democrat MPs have no special voting rights when choosing the leader – however, a prospective candidate must be a sitting Liberal Democrat MP with the support of at least ten percent of the parliamentary party in order to stand in a leadership election.
Labour
Until 1981, the
Labour Party leader was chosen by a secret ballot of Labour MPs. One-member, one-vote for the election of the party's leader was first proposed at Labour's Wembley Special Conference in 1981, but was opposed by
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...
,
who instead initiated an
electoral college comprising different interest groups in the party: a
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
section comprising 40% of the total vote, consisting of block votes cast by union General Secretaries,
[ another section of 30% comprising the ]Parliamentary Labour Party
In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in Parliament, i.e. Labour MPs as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes draw a distinction between the Labour ...
(Labour MPs) and a further 30% for Constituency Labour Parties
__NOTOC__
A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency.
In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliam ...
(CLPs). Following 1989, it was compulsory for CLPs to ballot its members, with the CLP's vote going to only the winning candidate.
Party leader Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
attempted, but failed, to introduce one-member, one-vote in 1984. His successor, John Smith partially introduced a new one-member, one-vote system by abolishing the trade union block vote in the selection of Labour parliamentary candidates, and by giving union members paying the political levy (in the trade union section of Labour's electoral college) a direct vote in the party's leadership elections. He introduced the change at the Labour Party Conference in 1993, and was verbally supported in winning votes for it at the Conference by then-Shadow Cabinet member John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...
.
A complete one-member, one-vote voting system (as originally proposed by both Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
and John Smith) was introduced in 2014 by Labour leader Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
. All Labour Party members are now entitled to vote for the Leader and Deputy Leader of the party as part of an electoral college which includes MPs and trade unions.
Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras ...
attempted to remove the one-member one-vote system as part of a package of internal electoral reforms at the 2021 Labour Party Conference, but was forced to water down his proposals after widespread opposition.
Conservatives
In January 1998, the one member, one vote principle was adopted as part of the series of reforms of the Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
. MPs choose two candidates to go to a vote by all Conservative members.
The system was first used by the Conservatives in the 2001 leadership election to replace William Hague
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
. A runoff by various candidates led to Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was S ...
and Kenneth Clarke
Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham, (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997 as well as serving as de ...
being put forward to a vote of all Conservative members, where 79% of the 328,000 eligible members voted. Duncan Smith became the new Leader of the Conservative Party with 61% of the votes (155,933 votes). Kenneth Clarke
Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham, (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997 as well as serving as de ...
obtained 39% of the votes (100,544 votes).
In the 2003 leadership election no ballot took place, since Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne (born Michael Hecht; 7 July 1941) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held cabinet posi ...
was unopposed in standing to replace Duncan Smith. The two-candidate runoff was employed again two years later, when David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
was chosen by the Conservative members as their new leader over David Davis. Cameron had 134,446 votes compared to Davis’ 64,398 votes, making a total number of 198,844 votes.
See also
* Branch stacking
A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' twig'' usuall ...
* One share, one vote, in corporate governance
References
{{reflist
Political party leadership elections