Municipal elections | A judicial recount seen from the inside
Does a torn ballot count? What if the voter crossed out the candidate’s name rather than putting an X next to it? This is the type of case that is decided during a judicial recount, an operation attended by The Press.
Yes and no, judge Scott Hughes ruled in front of a packed room on 14e floor of the Montreal courthouse on Thursday.
This is where the envelopes contained in each of the 65 ballot boxes filled on election night in the Saint-Jacques district, in downtown Montreal, were reopened one by one.
The quiet exchanges, barely covered by the incessant rustling of paper, betray the excitement that reigns there.
The stakes are high, because the right arm of the new mayor and former CEO of Centraide of Greater Montreal Claude Pinard won by a slim margin of 13 votes over his opponent from Projet Montréal.
PHOTO CHARLES WILLIAM PELLETIER, ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Claude Pinard is the right arm of the new mayor of Montreal, Soraya Martinez Ferrada.
A well-oiled mechanism
Around fifty volunteers are responsible for confirming the winner once and for all.
In the room, the mechanics are well oiled. The benches normally used during hearings have been replaced by around ten tables where four people sit. Here we repeat the counting from last November 2, but in a perfect way, in a way, under the watchful eyes of lawyers and the judge.
Each of the small groups has two Élections Montréal employees: a deputy returning officer responsible for opening the envelopes and handling the ballots and a secretary responsible for keeping track of the operations.
They are accompanied by a representative from each interested party, in this case Ensemble Montréal and Projet Montréal, who are vying for victory.
At the parties, from employees to the most important strategists, everyone is involved. At one of the tables, the former president of the executive committee of Projet Montréal Benoit Dorais could be seen presenting one by one the ballots taken from the envelopes of a ballot box.
And these are numerous.
A mass of envelopes
PHOTO GRAHAM HUGHES, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
In municipal elections, voters had to fill out a ballot for each position.
There is an envelope for the validated ballots of each candidate, for each position – the voters of Ville-Marie voted twice, for their city councilor and for the town hall, positions run by 22 candidates in total -, in addition to one for the rejected ballots and another for the damaged ballots, among others.
And all must be opened in case a ballot from Claude Pinard’s opponent, Robert Beaudry, was accidentally slipped there on the evening of the vote.
“Often, people wonder why it takes so long in Montreal, well that’s why,” underlines a compliance coordinator for Élections Montréal, Marie Papineau, met on site.
Suddenly, voices are raised at one of the tables. Lawyers from both parties and those from Election Montreal rushed there. The initials affixed to the back of ballots taken from one of the envelopes visibly come from two different people: an anomaly.
“If there is a report that there was a replacement at that time, that is correct,” quickly raises the lawyer for Élections Montréal, Ms.e Geneviève Gagnon.
Everyone agrees, the debate is closed, the judge will not have to decide. The recount can continue.
A rejected ballot
However, not every case is that simple. Fortunately, the law provides for certain very clear situations where a ballot must be rejected. Or when he:
- was not provided by the scrutineer;
- was not marked or was marked incorrectly;
- was marked in favor of more than one candidate;
- was marked in favor of a person who is not a candidate;
- bears fanciful or offensive inscriptions;
- bears a mark allowing the voter to be identified;
- was marked otherwise than using the pencil that the deputy returning officer gave to the voter.
Suddenly, the whispers in the room are interrupted by the voice of the clerk: the judge is preparing to render a decision. A ballot does not bear the initials of the scrutineer who should have affixed them before giving it to the voter so that he can slip it into the ballot box.
Verdict: failing to be able to bring the scrutineer to testify, the ballot is rejected.
“It’s really meticulous work, but everyone who is here has an interest in the truth coming out,” explains, through the crowd, Ensemble Montréal lawyer and former city councilor Franceso Miele.
And after an intense day of recounting, the truth will finally come out shortly before 6 p.m.
Claude Pinard indeed won in the Saint-Jacques district, not by 13 votes, but by 23. Just in time for him to take the oath at city hall alongside his colleagues.
Other hotly contested races in Montreal will have to be decided in the same way next week, including those of the town halls of Lachine and Verdun. In the case of Verdun residents, they had to fill out five ballots, one for each elective position representing the district for which three to eight candidates were seeking. The new count therefore promises to be tedious.
