10-15-2008
Lone Tory loser not ready to concede his Alta. riding
By Darcy Henton
Canwest News Service
Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer is waiting for the preliminary results of his stunning election loss to be confirmed. (Shaughn Butts/Canwest News Service) EDMONTON - Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer is waiting for the preliminary results of his stunning election loss in his Edmonton riding to be confirmed by Elections Canada before commenting on his fate, a party spokesman said Wednesday afternoon.
William McBeath said Jaffer, who has represented the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona in the House of Commons since 1997, is reviewing the results of Tuesday's vote with Elections Canada officials before meeting with reporters.
"Whenever it's a close result of less than 1,000, members of both sides go in and review the poll votes," McBeath said. "It's not unusual. Following the election, particularly when it's close, you want to make sure everything is done in an appropriate manner."
Based on Tuesday's tally, Jaffer appears to have lost his seat to the NDP's Linda Duncan by 442 votes, but Elections Canada says the result is "preliminary" until it can be verified.
Duncan's victory, which didn't become apparent until almost all the votes had been tallied, was all that stood in the way of a Conservative sweep of all 28 Alberta ridings.
Elections Canada spokesman David Rutherford said officials are "validating the vote" - a process that's standard procedure in all ridings.
"That means checking it, counting it and checking all the numbers."
McBeath said the process underway "is definitely not a recount," but Jaffer could decide to pursue that option through the courts after the results are validated.
Rutherford said judicial recounts are triggered automatically when the number of votes separating the winner from the second-place finisher is less than one thousandth of the number of votes cast.
Based on that formula, an automatic judicial recount would have been triggered if Jaffer had lost by fewer than 47 votes.
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