section_path: Electoral system
section_name: Electoral system
paragraph_text: Electoral system
  
  Under the procedure outlined by the party's constitution, all registered Liberals were eligible to vote directly for leader by preferential ballot if they were registered at least 41 days before the day of the leadership vote. The three criteria for registration as a Liberal were: (1) the registrant must either be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada or have status under the Indian Act; (2) the registrant must not be a member of another political party; and (3) the registrant must be a minimum of 14 years old. As of the January 27, 2025, registration deadline, there were approximately 400,000 registered voters eligible to cast ballots.
  
  To be nominated, a candidate was required to collect 300 signatures from registered Liberals, including at least 100 from three different provinces or territories.
  
  Candidates were required to pay a $350,000 entrance fee to run. The fee was to be paid in four instalments between January 23 and February 17, 2025, with only the initial $50,000 instalment being refundable.
  
  The voting system used was instant-runoff voting, weighted so that each electoral district was equal. For each of the 343 electoral districts, 100 "points" were allocated to the candidates in proportion to the number of first-preference votes received from voters resident in that electoral district. To win, 17,151 points were required. If no candidate had received a majority of points on the first count, the candidate with the fewest points would have been eliminated and a second count conducted, with the 100 points for each electoral district allocated to the remaining candidates according to the voters' first preference among remaining candidates. This process would then have continued until one candidate received a majority of points.