One Member One Vote
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One Member One Vote, as used in the parliamentary politics of Great Britain[1][2], Canada[3], and the Canadian provinces[4], is a proposal to select party leaders and/or determine party policy, by a direct vote of the members of each party. Traditionally, these objectives have been accomplished either by a party convention, a vote of Members of Parliament, 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.
[edit] Canada
In Canada, the principle of One Member One Vote has for years been a major commitment of Vaughan L. Baird, retired Q.C. and Member of the Order of Canada. Long a proponent of the election process that empowers all members of a party to chose their leaders, Baird was instrumental in having the provincial constituency of Morris, Manitoba successfully put forward the principle of One Member One Vote to the provincial Progressive Conservative Party on 5 November 1985. Immediately after the Morris victory, Baird wrote every national and provincial party in Canada and urged them to do the same. Soon after, the Manitoba Liberal Party adopted the principle. Alberta PCs used the method in electing Ralph Klein as their new leader in December 1992.
Manitoba PCs adopted the principle in early 1987, but the hierarchy of the PC Party 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 Though again adopted by the party in 1994, OMOV was revoked a second time in November 1995.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, by almost unanimous consent (only three votes against the motion), OMOV was passed by the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba. Thus after 16 years of effort, the vote for leadership of the provincial PC party was democratized.
Also in 1995, the New Democratic Party moved some way towards OMOV when they developed a series of regional primary elections prior to their convention.
More recently in Canada, the Alberta Progressive Conservatives elected a new leader, Ed Stelmach, who succeeded former premier Ralph Klein, utilizing the OMOV system. 97,000 people voted in December 2006.
Conversely, on December 2, 2006, the Liberal Party of Canada elected their new leader, Stephen Dion, with fewer than 5,000 voting delegates. (Most delegates were elected at constituency party meetings, and were required to cast their first ballots according to the wishes of those meetings. They were free to vote as they wished on subsequent ballots.) At their annual meeting, the Liberals also voted to amend their constitution allowing all members to vote for the leader of their party. But it failed by just a few votes to meet the requirement necessary of 2/3 votes to amend their constitution.
[edit] United Kingdom
Meanwhile, Vaughan Baird also wrote all the parties in Britain. Not long after, the Labour Party adopted the OMOV process in choosing Tony Blair as leader of the Party in July 1994, when the 542,000 votes cast made his election the largest such political involvement ever held in Europe.
Subsequently, in January 1998, the One Member One Vote principle was adopted as part of the series of reforms of the Conservative Party, thus taking the choice of leader away from the Tory caucus and placing it in the hands of the general membership.
A run off by various Conservative candidates was held on July 10, 2001 for a new leader, and the final vote was taken by September 12, 2001.
The eligible voters were 328,000 members of the Conservative Party of which 79% of the voters exercised their rights on said date. Duncan Smith became the new Leader of the Conservative Party of Britain with 61% of the votes (155,933 votes). Kenneth Clarke obtained 39% of the votes (100,544 votes).
The British Conservatives then changed the rules that the MPs would choose two candidates to go to a vote by all Conservative members. David Cameron was chosen by the Conservative members on December 6, 2005 to be the new leader over David Davis. Cameron had 134,446 votes compared to Davis’ 64,398 votes, making a total number of 198,844 votes.
Thus both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain now elect their leaders by all the members having the right to vote, other parties such as the Liberal Democrats have always upheld this principle.
