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What was only muttered about a couple of days ago in the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race emerged Thursday as an open, angry accusation: the party has all but rigged the vote in favour of one candidate.

Toronto businessman Doug Ford suggested Tory officials had sided with rival Christine Elliott in refusing to extend the election, a decision he said would deny “thousands” of PCs the right to vote.

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He also called the process “corrupt,” and went so far as to suggest – though without offering any corroborating evidence – that the party had favoured a select group of “VIP insiders” when it mailed out the secret codes needed to register for the election.

Ford himself stressed that Elliott is the only one of the four candidates for leader who has not echoed his call to extend balloting by a week because of various glitches.

“What would you call an election where only 1 out of 3 members can vote? I call it a scandal,” he said on Facebook. ”All the candidates are united, except one: Christine Elliott. It’s unbelievable. But the Party sided with her … This is just another in a long line of scandals coming out of Party HQ. What games are being played here?”