BLACK RIVER:
ONLY FIVE of the 42 ballots rejected in the final count for South West St. Elizabeth were admitted during the magisterial recount, which ended at the Black River Court House on Saturday. But this was not enough to overturn Water & Housing Minister, Donald Buchanan's victory in the earlier counts.
After the recount ended, the JLP's Derrick Sangster picked up the additional five votes, reducing Mr. Buchanan's victory margin from 110 to 105. The final tally being 7686 for Buchanan and 7581 for Sangster.
Speaking with The Gleaner after the recount, head of the PNP's legal team, Walter Scott, said that they were very confident because the margin of victory for the PNP was far in excess of the rejected ballots.
"Where the numbers and the books are concerned, there is hardly any room for the JLP to challenge the final results," he added.
"As it is, the results are very clear, there is nothing much we can blame the Returning Officer for. He erred on the side of caution, but with some submissions in law, those ballots were accepted," said Brian Wallace of the JLP legal team.
"When you have a number of rejected ballots, which are left and the margin of victory against you, then it doesn't fill you with a lot of confidence. You would really have to be looking for some particular thing, and we were looking for some particular thing, in some particular boxes," Mr. Wallace remarked.
He said there were a number of issues on how the election was conducted in relation to how Election Day workers and members of the security forces' votes were treated. He added that, how things were conducted in a marginal constituency such as South West St. Elizabeth, allowed a lot of room for manipulation.
After the October 16, General Election, Mr. Sangster file a writ for a magisterial recount, citing voter irregularities and voter intimidation on Election Day.
