Conservative party Leader elect -Erin O'Toole - credit Conservative Party

By Dori Modney

3 Ballots to elect new Conservative leader

Erin O’Toole takes federal Conservative leadership on 3rd ballot

Aug 24, 2020 | 12:21 AM

TORONTO, ON. — The federal Conservative party has elected Erin O’Toole as the party’s new leader. It took three ballots for O’Toole win.

The other candidates, Leslyn Lewis, Peter MacKay and Derek Sloan each sought over the course of the campaign to position themselves as the party’s best hope going forward, not just to defeat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but to refresh the Conservative brand in Canada.

At the end of the first ballot, touted front runner Peter McKay failed to capture the minimal 40 per cent of the vote and the candidate with he least votes, Derek Sloan, was dropped off the ballot.

On the second ballot, Lewis captured 10,140 votes, McKay had 11,756 and O’Toole had 11,903. As Lewis had the fewest votes on the second ballot, her name was removed from the third ballot.

However, Lewis was the bright spot in the election, as the candidate who many conservatives knew nothing about at the beginning of the party election, pulled in a significant number of votes, even on the prairie provinces. Political pundits acknowledge she will be someone to watch and was widely expected to be brought into the party caucus of whomever became leader.

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On the third ballot, McKay garnered 14,528 or 42 per cent of the voter, while O’Toole pulled in 91,000 or 57.2 per cent of the vote to take he party leadership.

O’Toole is expected to face two major challenges right out of the gate.

The first is that his party is the Official Opposition in the House of Commons, and in roughly a month, Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government will deliver a throne speech laying out a post-pandemic recovery plan. The vote on the speech is a confidence motion.

The second challenge party unity and O’Toole has already begun to work on that.

In his post election speech, O’Toole promised to work on party unity, Conservative values, and to hold Trudeau to account.

“We must continue to point out Liberal failings and corruption, but we must also show Canadians our vision for a stronger, more prosperous and more united Canada.”

O’Toole also stated, “Canada can and must do better and Conservatives will work hard to earn the trust and confidence of Canadians in the next election.”

The results of the election were delayed several hours due to an electronic glitch.

The voting was conducted by mail-in ballot, with roughly 175,000 ballots cast, the highest number of votes in the party’s history.

The ballots were opened by machine, with almost 4,000 ballots damaged in the opening process. Those ballots had to be either taped back together or manually remarked on a new ballot.

Scrutineers from all camps view the ballot and agree on the result, so there was no risk of the ballots being compromised.