Mountain race comes down to mail-in ballots
Liberal Lisa Hepfner leading veteran NDP candidate Malcolm Allen
Mountain residents are still waiting on a count of mail-in votes to see if Liberal Lisa Hepfner was successful in wresting the riding away from the NDP for the first time since 2006.
Hepfner, a well-known TV journalist, was leading NDP candidate and former Welland MP Malcolm Allen for the open riding by fewer than 690 votes with 154 of 155 polls reporting.
But a final tally depends on up to 2,604 potential mail-in ballots that Elections Canada only started counting Tuesday — a process Hepfner’s campaign manager, Colin Lalonde, says could continue over two more days. He said Hepfner will “let the process play out” before commenting on the race.
“We are so thankful for the show of support and the encouragement we have already seen,” Lalonde said.
Elections Canada spokesperson Nathalie de Montigny said counting mail-in ballots could take anywhere from one to three days because they must be verified in a two-step process to rule out tampering and double-voting.
If Hepfner’s lead holds, Hamilton Mountain will become the only city riding to change political colours in 2021. It would also mean Liberal MPs in three of five Hamilton ridings for the first time in 15 years.
The retirement of popular MP Scott Duvall, a former city councillor, spurred a battle for the open seat and prompted three visits each by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. Both leading candidates fended off accusations of being “parachuted” into the riding of 104,877 people, with Allen only recently moving to the Mountain from a Niagara home, where he served as MP from 2008 to 2015.
Hepfner lives in Oakville for family reasons but has worked in Hamilton as a journalist since 1999. “I have demonstrated my commitment to Hamilton for more than two decades,” she said in response to a debate question about why she chose to run in the city.
Allen and Hepfner were the only candidates to attend the riding’s televised Cable 14 debate, with both sparring over competing plans to improve housing affordability and transit in a riding where a majority of dwellings are single-family homes and nearly 36,000 people drive to work.