A week after the municipal election, the councillors for Ward 5 have been confirmed.
Today, the City of Timmins held an official recount for the fourth Ward 5 councillor position.
The results stayed exactly the same as they were reported on election night Oct. 22, with Andrew Marks earning the councillor seat with 2,637 votes. Cory Robin narrowly lost with 2,635.
“It’s been eight days of a little bit of trepidation since the actual election took place, certainly this morning there was a little bit of nerves because I’ve said you never take anything for granted in any election and I didn’t know how this process would go so something could have changed. I’m glad it’s done, I’m glad the recount’s over, I’m glad that I’ve been reelected for Ward 5 to represent the residents in Ward 5,” said Marks after the results were revealed.
The recount took place in council chambers starting at 10 a.m., with the process taking just over seven hours.
Both candidates were there, standing next to each other as they inspected each ballot before city staff fed them through the tabulator.
Marks said the process was fair and transparent. He added that he learned a lot about electronic voting, and the checks and balances that are in place.
The recount is a little different than it would have played out in the past, according to city clerk Steph Palmateer.
"In the past in a paper ballot election, all of the ballots go to the box, at the end of the night the DROs open the box, they count the ballots, they would identify any spoiled ballots or ballots that have ambiguous or marks that are difficult to understand or read or determine how the voter was trying to vote," explained Palmateer.
"In this case because we use the tabulation machines, any ballots that have those kind of marks get detected before the ballot gets into the ballot box and then the voter has the opportunity to correct them if they so choose. At that point that voter would take that spoiled ballot back to the DRO, get a new ballot issued, the DRO would cancel that ballot and then the voter would go in and vote correctly and their ballot would be counted in accordance with the number of votes that they’re supposed to vote for."
It's not known when the last recount was done in the city.
“This is the very first recount I’ve ever been aware of to take place in the time I’ve been involved with municipal politics and that starts in the year 2000,” he said.
The other candidates elected in Ward 5 are Kristin Murray, Michelle Boileau, Noella Rinaldo.
