Decision reserved: Losing candidate asks judge to toss Manitoba Tory leader result

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This article was published 09/12/2021 (1113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG – A judge has reserved his decision in Shelly Glover’s court challenge of the vote that saw Heather Stefanson become leader of Manitoba’s governing Progressive Conservatives.

Justice James Edmond of Court of Queen’s Bench said Friday he hoped to give his verdict in a week after hearing a full day of arguments Friday from both sides.

Glover, a former member of Parliament who narrowly lost the Oct. 30 party leadership vote to Stefanson, has alleged there were several irregularities and wants the result overturned.

Her lawyer, Dave Hill, pointed to daily spreadsheets the party gave to both campaigns as mail-in ballots were coming through in the latter part of October. The sheets were meant to keep track of which party members had voted.

The last spreadsheet, after the voting deadline had passed, had about 500 fewer votes than the official results announced some 16 hours later.

Hill also said there was questionable conduct around keeping the ballots secure from interference on the day they were counted. Boxes were moved out of the counting room unsealed after the count, he said.

“My submission is there are so many questions unanswered or rhetorically answered, that those allow you to say … the election results should be declared invalid,” Hill told the judge.

Harley Schachter, lawyer for the PC party, argued that the daily spreadsheets were never an official count and were known by both campaigns to be flawed.

He also said the spreadsheets had no bearing on the number of votes received and counted. Scrutineers from both campaigns oversaw all ballots, both while they were received in the mail and again as they were counted on Oct. 30.

“There is no credible evidence that there were any invalid ballots at all,” Schachter told court.

The ballots were counted at 18 tables, in the presence of Glover and Stefanson scrutineers, and a tally sheet at each table recorded the number of votes for each candidate.

Glover’s lawyer said some sheets were not signed by scrutineers, but Schachter said there was no rule requiring signatures. He also said Glover has not produced any evidence that the tallied numbers were wrong.

“The election was fundamentally fair, Ms. Stefanson won, and there is no basis in law or in fact to challenge or upset that result.”

As for securing the ballot boxes, Schachter said, they were under the control of an outside accounting firm and a security firm.

Glover sat in the courtroom the entire day. Stefanson, who was sworn in as premier three days after the vote, was not present, but was represented as an intervener in the case by lawyer Jonathan Kroft.

Like Schachter, Kroft submitted that Glover has not produced evidence that any of the alleged irregularities affected the result.

He also told the judge that a decision to undo the leadership outcome could be decided by party members instead of by a court. The party’s constitution allows members to force a new leadership race by a majority vote at any annual general meeting, which means party members could oust Stefanson if they wanted.

“It would be appropriate for the court … to leave it to the members to decide whether to revisit the election,” Kroft said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2021.