Recount bumps Dhaliwal back onto council

By Dan Hilborn
Published Dec. 3, 2005


Sav Dhaliwal is heading back to Burnaby city hall after a judicial recount overturned the results for the eighth spot on council from last month's civic election.

"I am feeling quite relieved," the recently retired Telus security manager told the Burnaby NOW just 15 minutes after receiving the news on Thursday afternoon. "It was very stressful for myself and my family. It was harder than I thought it would be to lose by three votes and then to go through a recount.

"But, obviously, I'm relieved," he said.

A total of six ballots changed during the recount, giving Dhaliwal a three-point lead over Team Burnaby candidate Barbara Spitz, who was announced as the winner of the eighth spot on council on election night.

In a short e-mail delivered to the NOW about two hours after the overturned result was announced, Spitz thanked her supporters and gave her best wishes to the new council and school board.

"Although I am personally very disappointed because I wanted the opportunity to represent our great community, please know that I will always be 'Barbara from Burnaby,'" said Spitz's e-mail.

The change leaves the Burnaby Citizens' Association with a 6-3 majority on council.

Mayor Derek Corrigan said he was "thrilled" to have Dhaliwal back on council. "Certainly, having a better majority makes things easier," he said. "But I'm hopeful the councillors from Team are going to be cooperative and work with the council, too."

But the ever-changing election results, which saw Spitz announced as the winner by a single vote on election night, increase her margin to three votes on an initial machine recount and then lose by three votes during the court-ordered manual recount, has both Team and BCA members questioning the accuracy of the machine-voting system.

Debbie Comis, chief electoral officer, said she still has confidence in the machine counting system because all of the changes recorded in this election were the results of different interpretations of the same unclearly marked ballots.

"Throughout the process, the hand count reaffirmed the high level of accuracy the machine counting provides," Comis said. "The judge did a manual recount and accepted ballots that may not have been necessarily accepted by a machine.

"The judge was looking for voter intent."

Comis said all of the changed votes came from ballots that could be interpreted in different ways. For instance, some voters circled the heads of the arrows on the ballot paper instead of drawing a line between the two arrows, which resulted in the machine rejecting the vote. Other rejected ballots were marked with blue ink instead of the black, carbon-based marker provided at the voting booths. "There's no carbon in blue ink so, to the machine, there's nothing there," she said.

Comis noted that all voters who cast a rejected ballot are told about the problem and are offered the opportunity to fill in a second ballot. Sometimes those people turn down the second ballot. and tell the poll workers to simply re-insert their initial ballot into the machine.

"Maybe they were in a hurry or maybe they didn't want to admit they made a mistake. There could be a whole variety of reasons why they said, 'Don't worry about it, let it go.'

"And once the voter tells the machine operator to override, the ballot goes into the machine and it doesn't come back out," Comis said. "I think the message here is to follow the instructions in your voting place and use the pen that is provided."

Coun. Lee Rankin, said he was particularly worried about the way the voting results changed from day to day.

"I really wonder about these voting machines," Rankin said. "The system has to work for the people, not the other way around."

And while Rankin expressed disappointment in the fact that the BCA increased its majority over the election night result, he said the three elected Team members - himself, Gary Begin and Garth Evans - will work together for the betterment of Burnaby.

"I don't think anything could be tougher than the three years I've just experienced," said the top vote-getter on council who used to be the lone opposition voice at city hall.