Judicial recount for crucial Labrador district continues in St. John's
Jordan Brown of NDP beat Liberal Graham Letto by 5 votes on election night
Lawyers and political candidates crowded into a St. John's courtroom Wednesday to begin the recount for a Labrador electoral district that will determine the status of Newfoundland and Labrador's government.
NDP newcomer Jordan Brown won the district of Labrador West by a five-vote margin over Liberal cabinet minister Graham Letto in the province's May 16 election.
Now, Brown and Letto are in the courtroom with their lawyers and that of the province's chief electoral officer scrutinizing each ballot.
If a candidate's lawyer thinks there is a case for a ballot mark to be contested, that ballot is put to the side. It will later be argued whether or not to count or disqualify that ballot.
This process will be the second time each ballot marked will be counted. The first ballot count was election night. An official count simply checked that the number of ballots reported for each poll matched up.
Voters re-elected Premier Dwight Ball's Liberals with a reduced caucus, one seat shy of the 21 required to form a majority.
Any election resulting in a difference of 10 votes or less requires a judicial recount, according to the province's Elections Act.
If the process goes in Letto's favour, the Liberals will hold a majority. If it goes in Brown's favour, he will bring the NDP caucus up to three members.
Lynn Moore, Jordan Brown’s lawyer, just went up to him with two ballots to get his opinion on whether or not they should argue them. <br><br>The one I saw had a scribbled out X by one name and then a clearly marked X by another
—@KatieBreenNLThe province's House of Assembly reopened last week to reintroduce the annual budget that was tabled but not passed before Ball dropped the election writ.
Ballots were under lock and key
The results have already been recounted once, without a judge, but some special ballots — the kind sent in the mail by people who can't make advance or regular polling — have never been opened, said Bruce Chaulk, the province's chief electoral officer, earlier this month.
"Because it's an unsupervised vote, there's a declaration envelope that has to be signed by the elector and if that's not signed, then that's one of the parts where it can be rejected," Chaulk said at the time.
He has also said he does not expect the count to change, as the original count followed the rules and those rules still stand.
Ahead of Wednesday's recount, the ballots were first housed at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary detachment in Labrador City. They were then transferred to the Supreme Court building in St. John's, where they were kept in a vault.
The recount will continue Thursday.
Clarifications
- A prior version of this story said the ballots had already been counted twice. In fact, ballots had been counted once, on election night. They were later tallied to ensure the number of votes reported equaled the number of votes cast, but votes weren’t individually reviewed. The process underway at court will be the second time ballots are opened one by one.Jun 20, 2019 10:24 AM NT
With files from Canadian Press and Katie Breen