The Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race has already unfurled with all the speed of a roller-coaster ride, including the ups and downs, and now there's some courtroom drama thrown in for added excitement.
Voting is scheduled to close at noon today. However, a lawyer will be seeking an injunction in a Toronto courtroom this morning, aiming to extend that deadline.
It's far from certain that the injunction will be granted, but if it happens it would throw into chaos the party's plans to announce the winner on Saturday afternoon. That winner will lead the Progressive Conservatives into the provincial election campaign, which officially starts two months from today.
Doug Ford, Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney and Tanya Granic Allen are the candidates. All but Elliott called on the party to extend the race by a week because an unknown number of party members were not able to cast their ballots online.
Ontario PC leadership candidate Caroline Mulroney wants the vote extended. (CBC)
The party claims to have more than 190,000 valid, signed-up members, but according to Ontario PC officials only 70,000 have had their identity verified, a required step before voting in the leadership race. The officials said 53,175 of those had cast their online ballots as of Thursday at 5 p.m. ET.
Members have complained to the party that they did not receive a required PIN code in the mail, making them unable to verify their identity and vote online.
It's one of those members, Christopher Arsenault, who is named as the applicant in the request for an injunction.
"Under the leadership contest rules, the Party undertook to mail to members ... a letter which included a unique verification PIN," writes lawyer Jeffrey Radnoff in a document filed in Ontario Superior Court seeking the injunction. "Thousands of members eligible to vote in the leadership contest have not received the letter."
Ontario PC leadership candidate Doug Ford poses for a photo during a Thursday morning campaign stop in Toronto. Ford lashed out at Elliott for her stance against a vote extension. (CBC)
The lawyer told CBC News he is not acting on behalf of any of the campaigns.
The party officials in charge of the leadership race intend to fight the application, saying a further extension would violate the party's rules.
"Our measures to accommodate the needs of members during this period have included extending the verification period three times and extending voting once," said Hartley Lefton, the chair of the leadership election organizing committee, in an email to CBC News on Thursday.
Ford said even his own mother has not been able to cast her ballot online.
"This is embarrassing to the party," Ford told reporters in Toronto on Thursday. "I've never seen anything that disenfranchises more people from a party than this does."
Ontario PC leadership candidate Christine Elliott says the voting system has problems, but that it's 'working.' (CBC)
Ford criticized party officials for rejecting his call for a week-long extension but reserved his harshest words for rival Elliott.
"Christine doesn't believe, obviously, in democracy," said Ford. "She doesn't care if they vote or not. Christine, she doesn't give two hoots about the people or she'd be saying, 'Yes, I want everyone to vote."'
At an event in Toronto on Thursday evening, Elliott defended her stance against extending the race.
"The system is working," Elliott told reporters. "Are there some problems with it? Yes, of course. But I also understand from the party that there are some reasons in our constitution why it can't be extended."
LIVE COVERAGE: CBC News Network will broadcast live from the Ontario PC leadership event on Saturday, starting at 1 p.m. ET, with host Rosemary Barton. You can also watch it streamed live on cbcnews.ca or tune into regular news updates on CBC Radio One in Ontario.
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