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Mayor Rob Ford voted against both proposals, arguing the current system works well.

“It just doesn’t make sense. How can someone who is not a Canadian citizen vote?” Mayor Ford asked reporters following the decision. He suggested the hours-long debate on the matter was a waste of time and doubted the province will heed any of the requests. “They’re going to go into the circular filing cabinet,” he predicted.

But if he is wrong, the proposals would have important implications for politics in this city.

Desmond Cole, who has worked on a campaign to give permanent residents the right to vote, estimates doing so would enable at least 250,000 more people in Toronto to participate in elections.

Ranked choice voting, meanwhile, would see a system that currently crowns the person who gets the most votes (known colloquially as first past the post) turn into one that ensures the winner obtains at least 50%. If a candidate does not achieve that amount at the outset, a series of instant runoffs occur that eliminate the lowest-ranked candidate and transfer those votes to the second, third and so on choices, until the threshold is achieved. In 2010, 20 Toronto city councillors won their seats with less than 50%.

The system has not been adopted by any jurisdiction in Canada, but it is used elsewhere in the world, including San Francisco, Portland, London and Wellington, New Zealand.

In a report, City Manager Joe Pennachetti noted a number of hurdles that the city would first have to cross, including the purchase of new voting machines (which is already slated to happen after the next election), “extensive” public consultation and education. He said every city that has adopted ranked choice voting has first held a referendum. The system costs more to administer, he said. Mr. Pennachetti also said the provincial government would probably want to conduct comprehensive consultation before extending the vote to non-citizens, since it represents a “fundamental change” to the current process.