Judicial recount for crucial Labrador district continues in St. John's

Lawyers and political candidates crowded into a St. John's courtroom Wednesday to begin the recount for a Labrador electoral district that willdetermine the status of Newfoundland and Labrador's government.

NDP newcomer Jordan Brown won the district of Labrador West by a five-vote margin over Liberal cabinet minister Graham Letto in the province's May 16 election.

Now, Brown and Letto are in the courtroom with their lawyers and that of the province's chief electoral officer scrutinizing each ballot.

If a candidate's lawyer thinks there is a case for a ballot mark to be contested, thatballot is put to the side. It will later be argued whether or not to count or disqualify that ballot.

This process will be the second time each ballot marked will be counted. The first ballot count was election night. Anofficial count simply checked that the number of ballots reported for each poll matched up.

Voters re-elected Premier Dwight Ball's Liberals with a reduced caucus, one seat shy of the 21 required to form a majority.

Any election resulting in a difference of 10 votes or less requires a judicial recount, according to the province's ElectionsAct.

If the process goes in Letto's favour, the Liberals will hold a majority. If it goes in Brown's favour, he will bring the NDP caucus up to three members.

The province's House of Assembly reopened last week to reintroduce the annual budget that was tabled but not passed before Ball dropped the election writ.

Ballots were under lock and key

The results have already been recounted once, without a judge, but some special ballots the kind sent in the mail by people who can't make advanceor regular polling have never been opened, saidBruce Chaulk,the province's chief electoral officer, earlier this month.

"Because it's an unsupervised vote, there's a declaration envelope that has to be signed by the elector and if that's not signed, then that's one of the parts where it can be rejected," Chaulk said at the time.

He has also said he does not expect the count to change, as the original count followed the rules and those rules still stand.

Ahead of Wednesday's recount, the ballots were first housed at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary detachment in Labrador City. They were thentransferred to the Supreme Court building in St. John's, where they were kept in a vault.

The recount will continue Thursday.

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