After conceding liberal incumbent Julie Dzerowicz a week ago at Toronto’s Davenport, Alejandra Bravo of the NDP will ask a judge for a vote count on Friday, the Star learned.
“We want the court to order, monitor and recount because of the many problems we experienced and observed on Election Day,” Bravo said.
“Things don’t add up.”
The request will be made in the name of Bravo, and the respondent will be the electoral director, Stéphane Perrault. It will include affidavits from witnesses, according to Bravo.
The candidate has not only said that her campaign documented discrepancies in the vote counts for the ballots cast, but also mentioned an “inability or unwillingness” of the election clerks to allow the NDP scrutineers (someone who observes the procedures at the polls on behalf of the candidate) monitor account, taking into account that the number of people he was allowed to appoint to this position was also limited.
“We didn’t have a sufficient number,” Bravo said.
“That was a problem when analyzing the vote.”
He also said there were problems with polling stations opening late, causing some voters to be turned away.
“We have no idea how many people couldn’t vote for that,” he said.
“The most important thing, right now, is that people must be able to trust the accuracy of the election result and they must feel that the process is fair and transparent,” said Bravo. “That is currently not available to us.”
Dzerowicz is confident that the results will be sustained.
“It is an honor for me to be re-elected. I’m going back to work, ”he said.
“I feel confident in the process.”
Horseback riding remained a bite after Election Day with each candidate taking the lead throughout the night.
By last Wednesday, only 165 votes were between the two candidates and now the difference has narrowed to 76, according to Elections Canada.
A judicial recount is automatically triggered if the difference between the number of votes cast for the candidate with the most votes and the number of votes cast for any other candidate is less than one-thousandth of the valid votes cast, according to Elections Canada. Judicial count manual.
Although this margin does not require an automatic recount, Bravo said it is only 29 votes away from the total that would have caused it.
Bravo is known in horseback riding as a multilingual social activist. This is his first federal campaign, after suffering three previous narrow losses while running for the local city council seat.
Bravo’s campaign manager Denise Hammond said there are concerns about the democratic process being maintained in “each and every election.” “We want to have transparency for all of our voters,” he said.
Bravo said he regrets that the election took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, but believes in the people of Davenport.
“We are confident that by complying with this, we will be able to provide people with the guarantees they deserve.”
Reference-www.thestar.com