'EVERY VOTE COUNTS:' Judge sets date for Windsor federal riding ballot recount

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The ballots cast in the tight federal race in Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore will come under the microscope next week as Liberal candidate Irek Kusmierczyk seeks to overturn Conservative Kathy Borrelli’s April 28 election night win.

The local recount — one of four being conducted nationally —  comes only shortly after another federal seat in the Montreal area flipped to the Liberals following an automatic judicial recount Sunday.

“I think it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out,” said Jamey Essex, a University of Windsor political science professor.

“Whether it sort of confirms the validation process, or if it does flip, it’s going to be close.”

Following a review of filed affidavits citing incorrectly rejected ballots and tabulation errors presented by the Liberal campaign, Superior Court Justice Ross Macfarlane concluded a hearing in Windsor last Friday by ordering a judicial recount in Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore.

“They (Liberal campaign) must think there’s enough of a chance there to close it,” Essex told the Star Monday. “Whether that’s actually the case, it depends on what they really see with those rejected ballots, and that’s hard to know.”

More than 500 of the roughly 70,000 ballots cast in the Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore riding were rejected, according to Elections Canada.

Legal counsel from both the Liberal and Conservative campaigns held a follow-up Zoom meeting with Justice  Macfarlane on Monday. Details were confirmed for a recount on Tuesday, May 20, at an office located in Tecumseh’s Green Valley Plaza.

Such recounts, explained Essex, are a fairly routine part of the electoral process: “It’s not uncommon to have recounts.

“I think because of the swirl of Trump-style politics and the heightened sensitivity to what the government may do in relation to the U.S., and what generally seems to be an unsettled economic picture, the recounts maybe carry more weight and more attention.

“It does seem to be a situation where every vote counts and every seat counts in ways that people maybe don’t pay attention to. It seems like an abnormal election year because of all those other factors.”

The stakes are particularly high this election — the Liberals are only a couple seats short of a majority government — and never before has the importance of every single vote been demonstrated. Following an automatic recount in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne, the seat flipped from the Bloc Québécois to the Liberals — by a single vote.

The flipped seat inched the Liberal party’s total to 170 seats in the House of Commons, still two short of the 172 needed to form a majority government.

“It clearly shows that every vote does count,” said Essex.

“You never know exactly when it’s going to count. I know a lot of people who don’t participate in the voting process. They feel like their vote doesn’t matter.”

Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore is the only riding where a judicial recount was not automatically triggered, instead requiring a judge’s order after the Kusmierczyk campaign applied to the court with such a request.

The race narrowly missed the threshold for an automatic recount by just seven votes. According to Canada’s election rules, a recount is automatically triggered when a candidate wins by less than 0.1 per cent of the overall vote in that riding.

Elections Canada announced that a recount will also take place in Milton East-Halton Hills South, where the Liberal candidate eked past the Conservatives by 29 votes.

Another recount is also underway in the Newfoundland and Labrador riding of Terra Nova-The Peninsulas, where the Liberal candidate won by a scant 12 votes.

Essex believes it’s unlikely the remaining three recounts will result in a majority government for Prime Minister Carney and the Liberal party.

“There’s a small range where it could move, but they’re not going to move into the majority through the recount process.”

According to Elections Canada, a judicial recount is a formal recounting of all accepted ballots overseen by a Superior Court judge. The process offers a second look at rejected ballots that were improperly marked by voters.

One example of an uncounted vote the Kusmierczyk campaign cited at last week’s court hearing was a ballot clearly marked with an X selecting the Liberal candidate but rejected as an incorrectly marked ballot because the voter added in the margins: ‘Irek did a good job.’

mmazak@postmedia.com