By Brian Lawrence
Provincial Court Judge Lynal Doerksen has granted the request from the Town of Creston’s Chief Elections Officer Stacey Hadley for a judicial recount of the recent municipal election results, following yesterday’s hearing in Provincial Court in Creston.
The full manual recount will take place on Friday, November 2nd at 9:30 am at Creston Town Council Chambers. The Provincial Court Judge will be in attendance to oversee the process and verify the results.
The judge has identified who is entitled to be present for the recount. This includes the candidates in the election and one other representative, the election officials from the Town, and two members of the local media: the Creston Valley Advance and Juice FM.
The Chief Elections Officer for the Town of Creston has notified all candidates and Town Council of the recount time, date and location.
The purpose of requesting the judicial recount by the Provincial Court is to confirm the accuracy of the counting of the ballots due to the close nature of the ballot count. A judicial recount means that an independent official, the judge, will decide if any ballots were not correctly accepted or not correctly rejected, as required by the rules in sections 139 and 148 of the Local Government Act. Ballots for all categories (Mayor, Councillors, and Referendum) will be recounted.
Friday’s full manual recount involves visually inspecting all of the ballots under the direction and supervision of the Provincial Court judge. The judge will then inspect ballots identified by the Chief Elections Officer as possibly not complying with section 139 of the Act and will rule on their validity. After the judge approves the final count, the judge will formally declare the results of the election.
“As the Chief Elections Officer responsible for the administration of the election, I will provide additional information as it comes available,” added Ms. Hadley, Chief Elections Officer for the Town of Creston.
