PNP's Christopher Brown raises concern about official count of ballots in St Mary South East

The official count of votes cast in the general election in the St Mary South East constituency was reportedly halted on Thursday to allow the returning officer to seek advice regarding the rejection of ballots, amid concerns raised by the People's National Party's representative.

Following Wednesday’s parliamentary election, which saw Christopher Brown of the People’s National Party (PNP) being declared the winner over Dr Norman Dunn, of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), who was the sitting member of parliament, there was tension at the Annotto Bay Primary school, as party supporters anxiously awaited the outcome.

The preliminary count on Wednesday saw Brown polling 6,642 votes to Dunn's 6,631, winning by a narrow margin of 11 votes.

However, Dunn, who spoke briefly to The Gleaner, said two of the ballots cast in favour of Brown were rejected.

Dunn did not expound, but said he was allowing the democratic process to take place and that he had every trust and confidence in the process being undertaken by the Electoral Office of Jamaica.

His opponent, however, was not satisfied with Thursday's proceedings, during which the contents of about six and half ballot boxes were reportedly counted.

“To date there is 63 rejections averaging almost nine per box. We have 112 boxes and if we multiply that by nine, based on the average that we are going, we are going to be close to a thousand rejections," commented Brown.

“This is unprecedented and such a mockery of the process of the law. And it’s not a matter of PNP or JLP, because we remain very confident in what the results are going to be, but it is just the guidelines that have been issued and the almost mockery of the democratic process, when people’s clear rights are going to be rejected on the basis of guidelines and rules that cannot stand-up in a court of law.

“So I believe that the RO (returning officer) has taken the right decision to abort the process now and to seek further guidance from her legal advisors, along with the director of elections, and she had advised that we will resume the count and [the] process will restart. If the law was to be applied properly, we certainly are not going to take days in terms of completing the process," he added.

The count is set to resume at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

- Gareth Davis

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