The 2018 Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election was held on March 10, 2018, due to the resignation of party leader Patrick Brown on January 25, 2018, following allegations of sexual misconduct. Winner Doug Ford narrowly defeated runner-up Christine Elliott on the third ballot with 50.6% of allocated points. The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election was scheduled for 3 months before the 2018 provincial election scheduled for June 7. It came after a turbulent year of disputed and allegedly fraudulent nominations contests across the province for local PC candidates. In two of these contests; Ottawa West—Nepean and Scarborough Centre the nominations were overturned after Brown's resignation and Brown's own nomination in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte was cancelled. At the time of the leadership election Newmarket—Aurora and five others remained under active investigation by the party and Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas remained under police investigation. According to Article 23.1 of the PC party constitution, when there is a vacancy in the position of leader, the party caucus chooses an interim leader to serve until a new leader is elected in a leadership election, which must be held within 18 months of the vacancy occurring, and in which all party members can vote. Party president Rick Dykstra told the media on January 25 that "a leadership election will take place at such time as the PC party shall determine in its discretion". The party executive met on January 26, 2018, following the caucus election, to determine whether to have a leadership election before the provincial election, and if so, how it would proceed, or whether to have the interim leader lead the party into the election, and called the leadership election for March 2018. Rules and procedures All party members are eligible to cast votes by preferential ballot using electronic balloting, provided that they are members in good standing by February 16, 2018. To be eligible, one must be at least 14 years of age, a Canadian Citizen who is a resident of Ontario, and pay a $10 membership fee with personal funds (i.e. no corporation or union funds may be used). The vote was weighted so that each of the province's ridings that has more than 100 votes cast are allocated 100 electoral votes; ridings in which fewer than 100 party members vote were weighted, but instead had the votes counted as individual votes. The lowest-ranked candidate were dropped from the next round