The Constitutional Court will today hand down a decision on requests for a recount of votes by Nationalist Party candidates on the 13th and eighth districts.
The court yesterday heard six hours of testimony over the two applications, filed separately by Fredrick Azzopardi, a candidate for Gozo, and Claudette Buttigieg Pace, who contested in Birkirkara.
The decision could affect the results of both districts, with the PN having lost both narrowly by three seats to two.
In his application, Mr Azzopardi claimed that Labour candidate Justyne Caruana had earned an extra nine votes because of a mistake in counting by the Electoral Commission.
Vanni Ganado, an electoral commissioner, testified that during the vote counting process, the hall manager told him that Labour candidate Paul Buttigieg had fallen through and his votes had to be distributed. However, when they did so they found 10 votes were missing. A recount was done and the number remained the same, 668.
“We turned to our legal adviser and told him the PN wanted to go back on previous counts and he said no,” Maj. Ganado said.
The electoral commissioners also asked whether they should halt the vote counting process and were told to go ahead especially since a recount had been done.
They convened the representatives of the political parties and updated them on the situation.
The PN was also informed of its right to file a petition or an application in court.
The 668 votes were redistributed and a “fictitious figure of 10 was placed with the non-transferable votes” to bring the votes in line with the total number.
“No one objected – they understood and we went ahead,” said Maj. Ganado.
Lawyer Pawlu Lia, who appeared for the Labour Party on behalf of Dr Caruana, pointed out that the two people who filed the applications would not be affected by the court’s decision as they would still be elected. Extra seats are going to be credited to the PN to achieve representation in Parliament proportional to its number one votes.
Lawyer Ian Refalo, representing the Electoral Commission, explained that the problem was that several counts were made.
After each count anyone could request a recount. Once this was closed then the next count was started. Dr Lia said the mistake in the 13th district was noticed on the eighth count.
A number of verifications were made and, following an implicit agreement, they moved on to the next counts.
He pointed out that the written protest was filed, on Monday afternoon, only after the counts for the districts were closed.
However, the PN’s lawyer John Bonello argued that the application had been filed before the commission signed the election results off yesterday morning.
Prof. Refalo said the discrepancy in the number of votes had not actually taken place in the eighth count as it would have been found immediately.
“If you recount every count, God knows how many mistakes will be found,” he said.
Dr Bonello said he did not exclude the possibility of mistakes but “a situation where you can’t find 10 votes and write another figure is completely different”.
Meanwhile, in her case over the eighth district, Ms Buttigieg Pace said that on the 14th count, when the votes of Nationalist candidate Michael Asciak were being redistributed, someone realised there were a bundle of “my number one votes in Dr Asciak’s pile”.
Ms Buttigieg Pace said she was then informed that because of a legal issue these votes could not be given to her. A protest was filed immediately.
Electoral commissioner Saviour Gauci said he could not go back on the mistake. It was as though those votes could not exist. However, the parties could file a court application.
The electoral machine, Prof. Refalo elaborated, could only move forward. The mistake should have been corrected in the first count.
Constitutional lawyer Therese Commodini Cachia, for the PN, argued that the Constitutional Court had the right and power to correct the mistake.
The court was composed of Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri.