BROWN'S TOWN:
DESPITE BEING declared the winner of last Monday's Magisterial recount for the Ocho Rios division in the June 19 Local Government elections, People's National Party candidate, Carrol Jackson, will have to face another challenge in the courts by way of an election petition.
This, as losing Jamaica Labour Party candidate Cyril Dennis has instructed his attorney, Mr. Ernest Smith, to challenge the results, claiming that there were a number of irregularities which affected the outcome of the election in the division.
RESULTS OVERTURNED
Mr. Smith told The Gleaner that he will be filing an election petition in the Supreme Court to have the results overturned and Mr. Dennis declared the winner.
In the Magisterial recount held at the St. Ann's Bay Courthouse on Monday, June 30, Resident Magistrate Winsome Henry ruled that Mrs. Jackson was the winner of the division by a margin of 35 votes, polling 1,351 votes to 1,316 votes for Mr. Dennis.
However, Mr. Smith said that there was sufficient grounds on which he intends to have the result overturned.
These include:
A number of persons whose names did not appear on the voters list but who were listed in the black book being allowed to vote.
A number of police personnel were allowed to vote on election day when they should have cast their ballots on the day reserved for them to do so.
Some persons voted without proper transfer certificates.
Thirty-eight PNP ballots were found in a dust bin inside the court room and were counted as valid ballots.
Mr. Smith is contending that no PNP ballots were in one of the ballot boxes when it was opened by the Returning Officer Rupert Brown and that those ballots that were found in the dust bin should have been rejected.
