BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
Ward 12 candidate John Caruso said he wasn't nervous as election workers performed a recount of ballots in his area Friday morning.
“I think this is the acid test for the system. The motivation to do this is partly because the closeness of the vote and the problems on election night, but it's mostly to ensure the integrity of the system.”
At a meeting Wednesday night, council voted unanimously in favour of approving a request by Caruso calling for a recount on the grounds a computer glitch may have altered the results.
At 9:30 pm on the night of the election, Caruso was shown on the city's website to have 1,793 votes while Joscelyne Landry-Altmann had 1,756 with all of the polling stations reporting. Less than half an hour later, the website showed Caruso had 1,529 and Landry-Altmann had 1,586.
Caruso said city clerk Angie Hache told him the day after the election the glitch was caused when a memory stick used to transfer data between computers was corrupted, thus changing some of the Ward 12 numbers.
The recount process is expected to last well into the afternoon. Election workers are feeding the ballots through electronic counting machines at the Election Warehouse and Training Centre in the Omega building on Larch St.
Lawyers and scrutineers for Caruso and Landry-Altmann were at the warehouse to look at each ballot as it was placed in the counting machine early Friday morning. Will Brunette, another candidate in the ward, was also there.
The fourth candidate in the ward, Derek Young, wasn't there, but is expected to show up several times throughout the day.
“I am very confident with what I am told that the results will prove to be accurate,” said Landry-Altmann.
“Without a doubt, I think it's important that people have confidence in the voting system. The clouds will lift, and we will be able to get on with it. Everyone will be at ease. I think John Caruso did the right thing.
There was an unexplained event at the time, and there were concerns and a lot of coverage of this event.”
In some cases, ballots may have been crushed in the ballot box, said Hache. When that happens, a duplicate ballot will be created by election workers and the original ballot will be placed into an envelope.
Ballots that are blank or have more than one name marked will be processed through the counting machine. The machine will produce a report on these “undervote” and “overvote” ballots at the end of the day.
If a candidate, lawyer or scrutineer wants to dispute a ballot, they are supposed to bring the matter to the election workers' attention. The city clerk will rule on whether the ballot will be considered a vote, undervote or overvote.
Hache asked the candidates and their representatives not to “unduly delay the recount process by examining ballots.”
