Justice Alphonsus Faour is set to make a decision on Friday regarding the judicial recounts requested by the Liberal Party following the provincial election held in October. Three recounts have been sought by the Liberal candidates who contested in the Placentia West-Bellevue, Topsail-Paradise, and Lewisporte-Twillingate districts.
During the arguments presented on Wednesday, Megan Reynolds, the legal representative for Liberal candidates Derek Bennett, Brian Keating, and Dan Bobbett, highlighted alleged discrepancies observed during the counting of special ballots. The affidavits from the Supreme Court indicated that Jeanette Fleming, the Liberal Party’s lead scrutineer, noted instances where special ballots with circled candidate names instead of X marks were inconsistently accepted or rejected. Furthermore, discrepancies were observed when voters wrote on the counterfoil of their special ballots, with some being rejected while others were accepted.
In response to Reynolds’ arguments, Adrienne Ding, representing the three PC MHAs-elect – Mark Butt, Jeff Dwyer, and Paul Dinn, countered by stating that Fleming’s affidavit did not demonstrate any significant inconsistencies in the contested districts. Justice Faour also pointed out that the issues observed by Fleming were in different districts, not the ones under contestation by the Liberals.
Reynolds argued that the issues witnessed in certain districts may have impacted the results in the challenged districts. Documents filed by Elections N.L. revealed that a substantial number of votes were cast by special ballot in the districts under scrutiny.
The province has stringent criteria for recount requests, particularly when the margin of victory exceeds a certain threshold. In a previous case, a recount was denied when the margin was larger than 10 votes. In the current situation, Bennett, Keating, and Bobbett requested recounts after losing by relatively narrow margins to the PC incumbents.
The decision on whether to proceed with the recounts will be announced by Justice Faour on Friday morning, potentially altering the majority government status currently held by the PC party.