No winner declared as ballot protest slows vote count in Toronto by-election Achi-News

TORONTO – It’s an urban Toronto seat that has been a virtual cakewalk for the federal Liberals for 30 years and a riding they shouldn’t have had to work so hard to win again in a byelection on Monday.

But the poor showing of the Liberals in Toronto — St. Paul’s — they were ahead almost all night but by a little bit — is not the only political story being talked about around parliamentary water coolers on Tuesday.

The other big speaker is the protest by a group trying to highlight the weaknesses of the first-past-the-post voting system, which hampered poll workers who had to open thousands of ballots containing 84 names that were close to a meter the one. long and individually folded like an old school map.

With the logistics of counting each vote by hand, the results came in slower than a sloth on its way to Sunday lunch.

Former Liberal chief of staff Leslie Church appeared to be closing in on victory in the early hours of Tuesday morning, ahead of Conservative challenger Don Stewart.

“We feel great about the result,” Church said at her campaign party at a neighborhood bar around 12:30 a.m. to the delight of supporters who chanted her name and shouted, “Call the race.”

But she didn’t.

“We’re not there yet,” he said.

While her Liberal colleagues hailed her as a great candidate with deep political experience as chief of staff to multiple cabinet ministers, the campaign brought challenges, not the least of which was a cranky electorate who had lost patience with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Toronto-St. Paul’s, in the city’s downtown area, contains some of Toronto’s wealthiest addresses as well as an above-average number of renters, and one of the largest concentrations of Jewish voters in the country.

Rising rents and the Israel-Hamas war played a particularly large role in the campaign and despite nine months of campaigning, Church appeared on track for the worst Liberal performance in the riding since the 1980s.

Carolyn Bennett, the former Liberal cabinet minister whose resignation in January triggered this by-election, won the seat nine times for the Liberals, and all but once by more than 20 percentage points.

Leslie led Stewart by less than four points at about 1:30 a.m. At that time, about a third of the 192 polls still had to report results, including more than 10,000 advance ballots that are usually counted last.

Before the polls closed five hours earlier, Elections Canada warned that things were going to move slowly. They weren’t kidding.

The protest group Longest Ballot Committee managed to stack the vote with more than 75 independents, almost half of whom ran a year ago in a riding in Winnipeg to make the same protest.

While the final votes were cast at 8:30pm, not a single result was reported for more than an hour.

Elections Canada spokesman Matthew McKenna said things were moving along very slowly and he was not aware of any issues with the ballots other than their unusual length.

The glacial pace of the count outlasted the Stanley Cup final hockey game by hours.

Stewart’s campaign party at a Jewish restaurant in the riding largely ended after he made an appearance around 11:30 pm, admittedly not looking particularly fired up about the results either.

“Let’s not give up,” he said, with middling levels of enthusiasm, before reciting Leader Pierre Poilievre’s alphabet soup slogan.

“Ax the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime,” he said, drawing cheers.

The tally was even greater than the CBC, whose live stream with host David Cochrane ran a heroic four hours without commercial breaks. But finally, they also threw in the towel when it seemed like it would be hours before a winner could be declared.

Church appeared at her campaign party to thank her volunteers and supporters at the four-hour mark, which unlike Stewart’s remained full of lively supporters.

“We love you Leslie,” shouted one, as she took the small stage to thank everyone for their patience. Then she sent her people home too.

The riding is seen as a crucial victory for Trudeau, whose government has failed in the polls for more than a year and now trails Poilievre and the Conservatives by more than 20 points.

The Conservatives played down their chances leading up to the vote – long-time strategist and informal adviser to Poilievre Jenni Byrne told the CBS they had no chance of winning before one result was reported.

But they will see the result as a victory even without Stewart being sworn in as an MP. The Conservatives have not won a single riding in the Toronto real riding since 2011, with the Liberals sweeping the city in 2015, 2019 and 2021.

To come this close in a riding that the Liberals haven’t lost since 1988 is a big boost of steam.

This report was first published by The Canadian Press on June 24, 2024.

-By Mia Rabson in Ottawa and Sheila Reid in Toronto.