The Province

Two failed candidates seek recount in West Van

- LORI CULBERT lculbert@postmedia.com twitter.com/loriculber­t

West Vancouver’s second-place mayoral candidate and the council hopeful who missed a seat by just 20 votes will ask for a judicial recount.

The court applicatio­n was filed Monday by former mayor Michael Smith, who did not run for re-election, on behalf of the man he endorsed to replace him, lawyer Mark Sager, who lost to former councillor Mary-Ann Booth by just 21 votes. The applicatio­n, which will be heard Wednesday in North Vancouver provincial court, was also filed on behalf of Jim Finkbeiner, who came 20 votes short of a seat on district council.

“We are challengin­g the election, the results,” Finkbeiner said Tuesday. The law required the papers to be filed by Monday and the recount, if approved, must be done by the end of this week, he said.

In the court documents, it is alleged that Sager asked for a recount three days after the election, and the district’s chief election officer Mark Brown did this by adding up the votes again from each voting station. “He refused to allow for any recounting of the ballots by hand or by machine,” the court file says.

Therefore, the plaintiffs allege, the recount was unreasonab­le. The allegation­s have not been proven in court.

West Vancouver District spokeswoma­n Donna Powers said Brown is confident the final tallies in his city are correct: 4,394 votes for Booth and 4,373 for Sager, and 4,942 votes for Sharon Thompson, who won the last seat on council, and 4,922 for Finkbeiner.

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