The Ontario Liberals have rejected an appeal launched by MP Nate Erskine-Smith after he lost a nomination contest earlier this month.
Erskine-Smith was vying to represent the provincial party in the upcoming Scarborough Southwest byelection but lost a nomination race on May 9 to business owner Ahsanul Hafiz by 19 votes, alleging voting irregularities.
Erskine-Smith appealed to the party’s arbitration panel, alleging irregularities that included 34 more ballots counted than the number of recorded voters, many people who couldn’t state their address and claimed to have “just lost” their driver’s licence, and people who used Amazon orders as proof of address.
The three person panel chaired by David Zimmer said they could not find any irregularities in the conduct of the nomination meeting that affected the result of the vote or that call the meeting’s integrity into question.
“We are satisfied that the party’s rules were followed and that Ahsanul Hafiz was the true winner of the vote. The appeal is dismissed,” the committee said in its decision released on Sunday night.
The panel says the discrepancy of 34 ballots that Erskine-Smith raised was not evidence of voting irregularities, but was instead an error in record keeping, due to failures to cross voters’ names off the list.
Erskine-Smith had said he wanted to run in Scarborough Southwest ahead of an intended bid for the party’s leadership, but now says that is “much less likely” after he failed to secure the nomination.
Premier Doug Ford has yet to announce a date for the Scarborough Southwest byelection, which must be held before August. The PCs have yet to nominate a candidate, while Fatima Shaban will look to keep the seat in the NDP’s hands.