After conceding to Liberal incumbent Julie Dzerowicz a week ago, in Toronto鈥檚 Davenport riding, the NDP鈥檚 Alejandra Bravo will ask a judge for a vote recount on Friday, the Star has learned.
鈥淲e鈥檙e wanting the court to order and supervise and recount because of the many problems that we experienced and observed on election day,鈥 Bravo said.
鈥淭hings don鈥檛 add up.鈥
The application will be made in Bravo鈥檚 name, with the respondent being chief electoral officer, St茅phane Perrault. It will include affidavits from witnesses, according to Bravo.
Not only has the candidate said her campaign documented discrepancies in vote tallies for cast ballots, she also mentioned an 鈥渋nability or unwillingness鈥 for poll clerks to allow for NDP scrutineers (someone who observes proceedings at the polls on behalf of the candidate) to monitor counts, noting the number of people she was allowed to appoint to this position was also limited.
鈥淲e did not have a sufficient number,鈥 Bravo said.
鈥淭hat was a problem in scrutinizing the vote.鈥
She also said there were issues with polling stations opening late, causing some electors to be turned away.
鈥淲e have no idea how many people were unable to vote because of that,鈥 she said.
鈥淭he most important thing, right now, is people need to be able to rely on the accuracy of the election outcome and they need to feel that the process is fair and transparent,鈥 Bravo said. 鈥淭hat is currently not available to us.鈥
Dzerowicz is confident the results will stand.
鈥淔or me, it鈥檚 an honour to be re-elected. I鈥檓 getting back to work,鈥 she said.
鈥淚 feel confident in the process.鈥
The riding remained a nail-biter after election day with each candidate taking a turn in the lead throughout the evening.
By last Wednesday, just 165 votes stood between the two candidates and now the difference has dropped down to 76, according to .
A judicial recount is automatically triggered if the difference between the number of votes cast for the candidate with the most votes and the number of votes cast for any other candidate is less than one one-thousandth of the valid votes cast, according to Elections Canada鈥檚 .
Although this margin doesn鈥檛 call for an automatic recount, Bravo said she鈥檚 only 29 votes away from the total that would have prompted it.
Bravo is well-known in the riding as a multilingual social activist. This is her first federal campaign, after sustaining three previous narrow losses while running for the local city council seat.
Bravo鈥檚 campaign manager, Denise Hammond, said there鈥檚 concern about the democratic process being upheld in 鈥渁ny and every鈥 election. 鈥淲e want to have transparency for all of our voters,鈥 she said.
Bravo said she regrets that the election took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, but she believes in the people of Davenport.
鈥淲e鈥檙e confident that by seeing this through, we鈥檒l be able to provide people the assurances that they deserve.鈥
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