Democracy doesn’t depend just on voting — counting matters, too. And city hall is looking at shifting the way Toronto does both.

City council is to consider a “ranked ballot” initiative at its two-day meeting starting Tuesday. If this measure ultimately comes to fruition, it could radically alter the way Canada’s sixth largest government is elected.

Reform is welcome. Toronto’s mayor and city councillors are now chosen through a flawed first-past-the-post system that grants victory to the person attracting the most ballots. It sounds fair, but successful candidates seldom win a majority of the vote — they only need more than their next most popular rival.

That put Councillor James Pasternak in office even though he secured a mere 19 per cent of the vote in York Centre. And Councillor Gary Crawford won Scarborough Southwest with just 25 per cent. Three-quarters of voters preferred somebody else.

Under a ranked ballot system, everyone elected to Toronto City Council would need the support of more than 50 per cent of voters. Here’s how that would happen: rather than selecting just one person to be mayor, for example, electors would mark their top choice as well as their second, third and fourth favourite, and so on.

When the ballots were counted, if nobody emerged as the first pick of a majority of electors, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated. That person’s support would then automatically be divided among those candidates who were these voters’ second-place option. Eliminations and transfers would continue until one candidate finally amassed more than 50 per cent support.

It’s more complicated than a first-past-the-post system but modern voting machine technology can do the necessary calculations quickly and efficiently. And it gives voters, literally, more choice.

Although no Canadian jurisdiction currently uses a ranked ballot, it’s how the country’s main political parties choose their leaders. The system is also fairly common in U.S. municipalities, including large cities like San Francisco, Minneapolis and Memphis.

Moderate candidates able to attract support from a cross-section of voters tend to do best under a ranked ballot (sorry, Ford Nation). And it gives people a greater sense that their vote actually matters.

The initiative is part of a broader election reform package being considered by city council and it deserves healthy support. Change won’t happen anytime soon. Even if council backs the idea this week, ranked balloting must be approved by Queen’s Park, then undergo public consultation, followed by another council vote.

The earliest it could be put in place is for the mayoral election of 2018. All the more reason to get the process started.