Because your Conservative opponent has apparently been moved enough by the outcry over the judicial recount to make an appeal to the B.C. Supreme Court.

[Conservative party official Ray] Leitch says that all the ballot boxes should be reopened and their votes counted, noting that a full recount Friday in a Quebec riding overturned a Bloc Quebecois victory in favour of the Liberal challenger.

The recount in Vancouver South found four vote changes in 22 of the 28 boxes that were opened, raising the possibility of 30 or more vote changes in the unopened boxes, Leitch says.

He conceded getting Dohm to change his mind was a long shot.

“He did say that he felt that there wasn’t enough changes to warrant continuing on,” said Leitch. “I guess we have to make a stronger case….”

Leitch would not rule out going to the B.C. Court of Appeal if the request fails.

Do the Tories have a case? I believe so. Here’s the relevant link to the section of the Canada Elections Act, and here’s what it says:

304. (1) The judge shall conduct the recount by adding the number of votes reported in the statements of the vote or by counting the valid ballots or all of the ballots returned by the deputy returning officers or the Chief Electoral Officer.

(3) At a recount, the judge shall

(a) count the ballots in the manner prescribed for a deputy returning officer or a special ballot officer;

(b) verify or correct, if necessary, each statement of the vote; and

(c) review the decision of the returning officer with respect to the number of votes cast for a candidate, in the case of a missing or destroyed ballot box or statement of the vote.

The trick, here, is to argue not so much that the judge should have recounted all the votes (since he does have the option of counting from statements — see 304(1) above) but that, given the margin of victory, the judge made an error in physically counting only a sample. If there was even 1 miscounted ballot in each of the 184 polling stations in Vancouver South, that’s more than enough to influence the vote count.

Will the appeal work? It’s a long shot, mainly because Justice Dohm did what was allowed under the law, and judges at that high a level only change their minds if a clear violation exists. “Undermining confidence in the electoral process,” unfortunately, isn’t much of a compelling argument.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 06:45 and is filed under Election 2008, Judgments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.