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The campaign to unite the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties has entered its final week with a flurry of rallies, a host of last-minute logistical arrangements and some indications of potential fault lines in an upcoming leadership race.

Voting begins Thursday among Tories, who will cast their ballots either by telephone or online over three days to decide whether to join with the Wildrose to form a new United Conservative Party.

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While PC Leader Jason Kenney said the Tories had more than 50,000 members after last week’s cut-off for membership sales, midnight Tuesday was the deadline for party members to register to vote, after which they will receive a PIN allowing them to cast their ballot.

PC acting executive director Janice Harrington said party staff were working furiously Monday to ensure Tories would be able to vote.

“We anticipated all this process would be part of it. What we didn’t anticipate was the massive amount of new members we got in the last week. We’re just dealing with volume right now,” she said.