A RECOUNT has been ordered in the St Saviour Constable election after a discrepancy was discovered between the number of ballots cast and votes counted on the night.
Veteran States Member Kevin Lewis secured the seat in what was the closest contest between a candidate and the ‘none of the above’ option.
Mr Lewis received 1,552 votes to NOTA’s 1,142, making a total of 2,694.
However, 3,158 ballots were actually cast.
The Royal Court yesterday ordered a recount to be undertaken no later than the end of next Wednesday.
As the discrepancy is greater than Mr Lewis’s margin over none of the above, in theory he could lose, in which case a new election would be ordered.
However, he is confident that the extra votes in the overall ballot are the result of double-counting.
Mr Lewis, who attended the court hearing yesterday, said: ‘I was quite surprised, but clearly there is an anomaly as the two columns don’t add up.
‘What I think has happened is that the pre-poll voting and postal voting have possibly been accounted for twice.
‘If this is the same, then the two columns will reduce by the equivalent number and the outcome will remain the same.’
He added: ‘But we need to ascertain what happened so the Island can learn from this and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
‘I was a Deputy for 17 years and the counts have always been spot on, so clearly there is an anomaly here.
‘For the sake of democracy, I fully support a recount.’
Mr Lewis said that the voting discrepancy came amid a generally confusing election, during which voters were, for the first time, given the option of voting for none of the candidates.
The option was designed to add an element of competition in elections where the number of candidates either equalled, or was fewer than, the number of seats.
Mr Lewis said: ‘Generally there was a lot of confusion with this election.
‘There were no Senators for the first time and some people were upset about that.
‘We had “none of the above” and some people were confused by this. I had people phoning me up to congratulate me and I had to tell them that they still needed to vote because of the “none of the above” option.
‘There was also a glitch and some people were sent to the wrong polling station, and so some people didn’t end up bothering to vote.’
The recount is to be overseen by the Master of the Royal Court, Advocate Matthew Thompson, and should not involve anyone who took part in the 22 June count.
Commissioner Julian Clyde Smith was presiding in yesterday’s hearing and sitting alongside Jurats Jerry Ramsden and Robert Christensen.
