A Northern Ontario riding is one of two in the province where staff is applying for a recount of the election results.
The official Election Ontario results for the Feb. 27 election are in. It has NDP Guy Bourgouin with 3,610 votes and PC Dave Plourde with 3,602.
In the unofficial tally on election night, Bourgouin had 3,606 votes.
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With fewer than 25 votes between the first- and second-place candidates, the returning officer is applying for a judicial recount. This step is required under the Election Act. A recount request is also being asked for in Misissauga-Erin Mills.
Recounts in Ontario provincial elections are rare. Since 1975, there have been 17 recounts across eight elections, with only two occurring in Northern Ontario — in Cochrane North in 1981 and Thunder Bay-Atikokan in 2007.
What happens when there’s a recount?
The Ontario Election Act lays out how a recount goes. Within four days (excluding Sunday) of the returning officer's official tabulation, a judge may name a time and place to recount votes.
There are three situations when a recount can happen — if a deputy returning officer has improperly counted or rejected ballots or made an incorrect statement about the number of votes for a candidate, if the returning officer improperly tabulated the votes, and if there are fewer than 25 votes between the first- and second-place candidates.
The recount has to be held within 10 days of the judge hearing the application.
A recount is done manually, even though vote-counting equipment is used on election day.
