More recount nonsense

What the hell is going on up here in the frozen north? That this is in BC is even more suspect, as it raises the question of where exactly all that police-confiscated cannabis gets shunted off to.

A major hat tip to Blue Like You on this story.

And I'll let Kady O'Malley give you a brief summary of the events leading up to this recount:

Okay, first off, I don’t blame people for raising a ruckus over the revelation that the judge who performed the recount in Vancouver South last week didn’t bother to open all the ballot boxes, instead choosing to re-check a random sampling of the 42,076 votes that were cast on election day – particularly when the margin between Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh and Conservative challenger Wai Young dropped to just 22 votes. At the same time, however, it seems as though someone should probably point out that, contrary to the carefully coddled conspiracy theories so cherished by some denizens of the blogosphere, Elections Canada had nothing to do with the decision to conduct a partial recount, which was made by the presiding judge – in this case, British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm - in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Canada Elections Act, and also detailed here. Not even the Chief Electoral Officer himself has the power to appeal or overturn the result, which is considered final.

Thanks Kady. Now, while I'm not exactly too paranoid of a person ( I think all conspiracies are quite obvious to the beholders ), I can't help but feel that such actions as exhibited by Patrick Dohm are ill-suited for any sort of functioning democratic process - especially a pluralistic system.

Kady has more, in a later post:

Rest assured, ITQ readers, that I am doing my darnedest to get to the bottom of this story, which seems to get more confusing with every additional tidbit of information that comes out. Thanks to Wai Young’s decision to ask the court to order a second judicial recount, we have a better idea of what happened during last week’s now controversial partial recount – according to the Conservatives, that is:

The Elections Act gives the judge supervising the recount the option of counting all the valid votes, plus spoiled and rejected ballots, or only those from a sampling of ballot boxes.
In the Vancouver South recount B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm opted to recount votes from 28 out of 184 ballot boxes.
An automatic judicial recount was triggered because Dosanjh led by only 33 votes when results were tallied on election night Oct. 14.
The recount gave Dosanjh, a former NDP premier of British Columbia, 16,109 votes to Young’s 16,087.
Leitch says that all the ballot boxes should be reopened and their votes counted, noting that a full recount Friday in a Quebec riding overturned a Bloc Quebecois victory in favour of the Liberal challenger.
The recount in Vancouver South found four vote changes in 22 of the 28 boxes that were opened, raising the possibility of 30 or more vote changes in the unopened boxes, Leitch says.

(Some more on that here.)

And:

UPDATE: Okay, according to someone who was in the room - I’m not trying to be
cagey, and I’m going to be calling Ray Leitch just as soon as it is a slightly
more civilized hour on the West Coast - what this story fails to mention is the
fact that the recount included - in fact, began with - the examination of each
and every one of the rejected ballots - 259 in total - which seems to me to be a
rather glaring omission. Of the 259, 41 were declared valid and counted, which
reduced Dosanjh’s margin of victory from 33 to 26. That, plus the four changed
votes from the opened ballot boxes, adds up to 22 - exactly the difference
between the candidates’ final tallies, as provided by CP.

And the results are?

Preliminary results (Source: Elections Canada)
Ujjal Dosanjh (Liberal)– 16,774
Wai Young – (Conservative) 15,995
Ann Chambers (NDP) – 7,288
Gulyas Csaba (Green) – 2,209
Charles Boylan (Marxist Leninist Party) – 213
Total votes – 42,479

Results as validated by the returning officer (Source: Elections Canada)
Dosanjh – 16,101 (-673)
Young – 16,068 (+73)
NDP – 7,369 (+81)
Green – 2,067 (-142)
Rejected - 259
Total votes – 42,076 (-403)

Results after judicial recount (Source: Canadian Press)
Ujjal Dosanjh – 16,109 (+8)
Wai Young – 16,087 (+19)

I'll see if there are a few more updates on this story, as there undoubtedly will be.

UPDATE: Joanne from Blue Like You is right on top of things, and has directed me toward this:

Apparently, the judge took the initiative to restart the count before the lawyers had even had the chance to make their arguments, so it’s back to the ballot-by-ballot examination tomorrow.
Will every vote be counted this time around? I guess that will depend on whether the margin is still as narrow after spending a few hours going through more of the unopened boxes of ballots; while a judicial recount cannot be terminated by any party, it can be sped up considerably if both candidates agree to suspend the hand count in favour of using the poll statements. Hopefully there will be at least one local media outlet allowed inside the counting room when the process resumes on Friday

( I apologise for all the quotations. It's just much easier, and ultimately the margin for error is reduced ).

Oh, and the Vancouver Sun has more on the story here. Perhaps it was simply a mistake on Patrick Dohm's part which led to this confusion.

Hira said the Conservatives appeared to concede during the recount process last Friday that Dosanhj was the winner, so Dohm signed a certificate, declaring Dosanjh the winner, which was sent to Ottawa.
But the Conservative candidate, Wai Young, later expressed she wanted a further recount.

Understandable enough, I suppose.