About 100 volunteers are recounting all 70,546 ballots cast in the April 28 federal election in Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore.
Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli won – initially – by 233 votes. A recount narrowed the gap to just 77 votes.
On May 9, Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk successfully launched a request for a judicial recount.
“I know that the stakes are quite high, and everybody’s interested the right outcome happens,” Justice Ross MacFarlane said Tuesday, minutes before the recount started.
“The ballots will tell the tale.”
The judge then asked the volunteers to keep their work over the next three days confidential, to protect the electoral process.
As soon as the ballot boxes came out, the media was prevented from taking any video or still images of the recount but are permitted to remain in the room.
There are some local Liberal party staff members in the room, connecting volunteers with Elections Canada officials to answer questions as the boxes are opened and the ballots counted.
The Process
25 tables have been set up with four volunteers at each table.
The 100 counters will go through every ballot cast at Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore polls.
It appears each table has two people to physically handle the boxes, bags and ballots.
The other two appear to be in charge of adding up the votes with pen and paper.
Each box has a sealed green plastic bag, which appears to contain the brown envelopes with the ballots.
The brown envelopes are sorted and put back into the box.
Each brown envelope is opened and the ballot pulled out.
The volunteer who grabs each ballot shows it to the counters, who add the vote to their sheet.
If the volunteers are unsure of a ballot the judge will make the final decision whether the ballot counts or not.
Elections Canada says 536 ballots were rejected.
It’s estimated the work will take three days to complete.