Card-carrying members of Canada's New Democrat Party are set to choose their next leader at a convention scheduled in Toronto on Friday and Saturday.
The new leader will succeed the late Jack Layton and will head the official opposition to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government.
The voting process has already begun as members were allowed to cast their ballot well in advance of the convention. However, candidates will realize the full scope of their support over the next two days as their respective war rooms make backroom deals with other candidates in an effort to survive each subsequent round of voting.
At the end, the candidate with more than 50 per cent of support from its members will become the party's new leader.
How the candidate arrives to 50 per cent is what will make this convention interesting.
Here's how the voting process works:
The NDP say there are 131,152 members who are eligible to vote for a new leader.
Advanced polls close at 11 a.m., Friday, March 23, 2012.
Between 1:30 p.m. and 5 p.m., each candidate will address the crowd in a last-minute pitch to gain votes. They will each have 20 minutes to speak to why they would make the best leader.
At 5 p.m., the first round of voting begins. Delegates will now have the opportunity to vote on the convention floor as well as online. This first round of voting will be open until 9 a.m. Saturday.
At 10 a.m. Sunday, results of the first ballot will be announced. This will include the results from the advance votes. Any candidate receiving less than one per cent of the vote will be immediately eliminated from the race. The candidate who received the least amount of votes on the ballot will not be included in the second ballot.
This is where it gets tricky.
Those who voted in the advance polls were given a ranked ballot, meaning they could vote for their first, second, third choice and so on. If the person they voted for as their first choice is knocked off the ballot in the first round, their second pick is immediately counted for the next round of voting.
Delegates who are voting at the convention centre will have an opportunity to recast their ballot after the first round of voting.
Meanwhile, each candidate's camp will work overtime behind the scene trying to gain more support by making backroom deals with other camps. Candidates who feel they might lose on the next ballot can cross the floor and throw their support behind one of their rivals. The delegates have the option of whether they want to follow that candidate's choice for leader or whether they want to choose their own person to support next.
Voting will continue until one candidate has more than 50 per cent of the vote.
(Click here to view a gallery of photos from the convention)
