Edward Keenan: What Toronto can learn from Chicago: a sane way to elect mayors
Except this week, watching from afar, some of us in Toronto who follow these things had reason to be a bit jealous. Not just because the man who won, Brandon Johnson, is a progressive teacher and union member who bucked expectations that a law-and-order message would carry the day. But because he won in a runoff election — defeating that law-and-order candidate who had led after the first round of voting.
They have a two-round voting system, where if no candidate wins a majority, the top two run off in a second vote where one will get a majority. There’s a tendency, when these arguments come up, for people to throw their hands up and say “Well, the winner wins, obviously! That’s how it works.” But the question is how the winner is determined, and what most voters wanted.
The potential for vote splits is huge. Because of that, the candidates will be doing all they can to define themselves against each other. And what we might wind up seeing is each candidate most vigorously attacking those who they agree with the most — because they are trying to win the small slice of voters that prefer both of them to the alternatives. That can warp everything.
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