Ottawa

UPDATED: Vancouver South Recount: Reports of its completion are greatly exaggerated

There was a brief moment of panicked confusion at the ITQ RecountWatch desk this morning after Commenter (and blogger in her own right) Joanne noticed that Elections Canada had upgraded the status of the Vancouver South recount to “completed”. But if you check the date, it seems that those are the results as initially certified by the judge on October 24, 2008 — the day of the original (and, at the time, ostensibly finalized) “partial” recount of rejected and special ballots (plus a dozen or so handpicked ballot boxes) that sparked the original controversy over whether the Conservative candidate, Wai Young, had, in fact, conceded, and eventually led the judge to reverse his decision and go back to counting the remaining ballots by hand.

According to ITQ’s source on the ground in Vancouver, the hand count will resume today, as scheduled. The numbers that currently appear on the Elections Canada site were, indeed, certified by a judge, but have not yet been validated, which, as far as ITQ understands the process, will not occur until everyone in Vancouver South is satisfied with the results of the recount.

(Incidentally, we’ve been told  – unofficially, of course – that there has been almost no movement in the numbers since the recount got back underway on Friday – by the end of the day, the margin had changed by just one vote– in Ujjal Dosanjh’s favour, no less. Oh, if only we were in British Columbia to chronicle the hijinx in realtime, although I bet the judge wouldn’t look kindly on a liveblogger in his counting room.)

For the full Vancouver South Recount backstory – well, the ITQ version thereof, anyway  – start here.

UPDATE: According to the Vancouver Sun, with more than 80% of the boxes counted, the margin has shrunk to 21 (from 22). They’re hoping to finish up tomorrow.

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