There will be an official recount for the mayor of Dorval, a race won by incumbent Marc Doret by 225 votes during the Nov. 2 election, after a Quebec judge ruled in favour of the rival party’s request on Tuesday.
The same judge ruled against the request by Doret’s Action Dorval team for a recount of a city council race where the challenger of Démocratie Dorval was elected by five votes.
In the mayor’s race, Doret received 2,951 votes (52 per cent), defeating Umberto Macri (2,726 votes, 48 per cent) for a second term in the mayor’s office.
Doret tells CityNews the judge ruled in favour of Démocratie Dorval’s recount request “on a technicality having to do with count sheets.”
“Supposedly the law says that they (count sheets) should be given to each representative of the party, and the other party claims they didn’t receive them all,” Doret said. “I mean, I didn’t receive them all either. But the counts have been proven to show that the election results are the same, that was the whole court case that we had earlier this week.
“It’s on a technical matter. He based it on an old ruling that was made many years ago. Again, I’m not gonna judge the wisdom of the judge himself; I just accept it for what it is. I’m fairly convinced that my election will stand.”
Doret says there’s been a claim circulating online of a missing ballot box, but it was disproved by the judge. “That’s not why we’re having a recount,” he said.
“I understand what people were talking about; there’s confusion about a polling box that was used for people to vote at home, which was an accepted practice,” Doret explained.
“There’s this rumour that there’s a missing box and there’s no missing box that existed. It was resolved the next morning of the elections with discussion with the DGEQ (Directeur général des élections du Québec) and it’s fully compliant, as per their analysis. If people are telling you that, they’re just continuing to perpetuate something that has been not accepted as a reason for a recount by the judge.”
An Élections Québec spokesperson did not respond directly to CityNews’ questions about any possible “abnormalities” with the vote-counting process.
A council meeting originally scheduled for this month has been postponed because of the recount for mayor, a spokesperson for the City of Dorval told CityNews.
Earlier Tuesday, the same judge denied Action Dorval its own recount request in District 3, where challenger Linda Jun Lu with Démocratie Dorval defeated incumbent Robert (Bob) Le Sage by five votes – 452 to 447.
Twenty-three of the 922 total votes cast – 2.5 per cent – were rejected.
“Recounts are not automatic,” Doret said. “You have to make a point. You have to explain your reasoning for a recount. We felt that with the unusually high amount of rejected votes across the city, it would be fair and just to just evaluate that everything was done as per the letter of the intent of Élections Québec. I can’t speak to why the judge went that way, I can simply respect his decision.”
Ahead of both judgments Tuesday, Doret issued a statement on Facebook about the legal challenge.
Doret called Démocratie Dorval’s recount request for mayor, which he claims was made two days after Action Dorval’s recount request in District 3, “vindictive and potentially intimidating.”
While Doret acknowledged his Facebook post may have been written “out of frustration,” he did not back down from the allegations of “intimidation” on the part of Démocratie Dorval.
“There was a lot of intimidation going on in this election campaign,” Doret told CityNews.
“I’m gonna tell you that on reflection… I ran in 2005, I ran in many elections since, and I’ve never seen anything like we witnessed in Dorval in terms of what was said on social media, how people acted door to door.
“We tried to run a very positive, very upbeat campaign, and we tried very hard to not get tangled in the weeds. I’m proud of that. I’m proud of my team for doing that. But at the end of the day, for as positive as we were, I found the other team to be very negative.
“I think their goal was always to challenge the elections, no matter what the outcome was.”
CityNews has reached out to Démocratie Dorval for comment.
Doret feels the people of Dorval are the ones suffering the most through this situation.
“On both sides, the trust of the people has been diminished,” he said.
“Credibility is lost across the board. Whether you like Mr. Macri or whether you like Mr. Doret and their teams, at the end of the day, it’s the residents that suffer the most in that they’re not getting the true information.”
