Round one is in the books and it goes to Mulcair although not by as much as he would have liked.
The curious thing about the vote, like general elections, is that not many people voted.
At this point 49.97% of the NDP’s membership has cast a vote for one of the candidates.
What makes this continuing voter phenomena so shocking is that during a leadership vote only paid members can vote.
When political parties sell memberships one of the value statements they make and that people is that for your $10 or $15 you can make your mark on the party by choosing it’s next leader.
To me it’s shocking that more members would vote. I think it also blows holes in the theory put out there by some people that voting in general elections should be mandatory otherwise you get fined.
People just don’t seem to want to get involved!
It will be interesting to see how this compares with the turnout at the Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention given in January they changed the rules to allow a free supporter category to vote for the leader.
What do you think?