Potential election recounts ‘unlikely’ to flip a seat, says political scientist

If the courts approve the Liberal Party’s request in any of the three ridings where it has applied for a recount, a change in the election outcome is unlikely, says Memorial University Associate Professor of Political Science Kelly Blidook. But if any of the three potential recounts does unseat a Progressive Conservative MHA, the PC government would have to govern a lot differently.

On Tuesday the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador announced it had submitted applications for judicial recounts in three of the province’s ridings where PC candidates won by narrow margins in the Oct. 14 election.

The PCs won 21 seats, the minimum required to form a majority government. If they lose just one seat, they would “have a much harder job on their hands,” says Blidook, who explains governing parties typically chose one of their own members to serve as House Speaker, in which case the party relinquishes that member’s ability to vote in the legislature except when required to break a tie.

In the event one of the potential recounts flipped a seat in the Liberals’ favour, the PCs would have to decide whether to appoint one of their own MHAs as House Speaker, in which case they would have 19 votes in the House of Assembly, a minority compared to the 20 combined seats held by Liberals, NDP members and Independents. In that scenario, the PCs would relinquish significant power in being able to pass legislation to fulfill their agenda.

“There might be a circumstance where they could convince one of the independents to act as speaker,” Blidook continues, but doubts that will happen. Having a House Speaker who is not a PC MHA would be “a bit problematic” for the governing party, he says, adding he’s “almost certain” the party wouldn’t be able to convince a Liberal or NDP member to serve in the role. “So then the math gets much more difficult for them. So it really does hinge on this one seat.”

Voters in Lewisporte–Twillingate elected PC candidate Mark Butt by an 18-vote margin, ousting Liberal incumbent and former House Speaker Derek Bennett. In Placentia West–Bellevue, PC incumbent Jeff Dwyer beat Liberal candidate Brian Keating by 64 votes. And in Topsail–Paradise, Liberal candidate Dan Bobbett lost to PC incumbent Paul Dinn—who was sworn in as Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development and Minister of Advanced Education and Skills on Wednesday—by 102 votes.

Provincial legislation mandates a recount in a riding when the margin of votes is 10 or fewer, but candidates may apply to the court for a recount at the court’s discretion.

PCs blast Liberals over recount requests

Blidook understands why the Liberals are requesting recounts in the three ridings, “but precedent suggests they’re going to get turned down” on at least the two with wider margins, and possibly on the Lewisporte–Twillingate one too. “There’s no legal reason that they have to have a recount for any of these, but I think it’s just ultimately up to the court,” he says.

He points to the court’s rejection of an application in 2021 by then NDP Leader Alison Coffin, who requested a recount after losing by 53 votes to Liberal candidate John Abbott in St. John’s East–Quidi Vidi in that year’s general election.

On Tuesday, in response to news of the Liberals’ recount requests, the PCs accused them of playing “legal games in order to cling to power,” and “wasting the court’s time.”

They said voters “decisively rejected the Liberals precisely because time and time again the Liberal Government put their self-interest ahead of the public interest,” and that their “latest scheme is just more proof that nothing has changed.”

Blidook says he’s “a little perplexed” by the tone and substance of the party’s messaging, and that the PCs would likely do the same thing if the tables were turned. The PC’s statement “makes it sound like the Liberals are doing something untoward or scheming,” he says. “I mean, it’s a judicial recount. There’s no scheme here. It’s not like they’re doing something bad or wrong; they’re just crossing all their t’s and dotting all their i’s, which I think anybody should do.”

The Progressive Conservative Party also said in its statement they will “vigorously defend the integrity of the election process,” another assertion that confounds Blidook. “When [they] say that they’re going to defend the integrity of the election, I don’t know what the heck they mean,” he says. “Having a judge take a look at the ballots certainly isn’t some scheme that threatens the integrity of an election. So I find their language really perplexing and I really wish parties acted more like normal people would act, as opposed to just trying to be jerks all the time.

“I know there’s no love lost between these parties, but just say, you know, ‘We’re quite confident we won the election,’ and leave it at that.”

A minority government scenario

Losing a seat to the Liberals would make it “that much harder [for the PCs] to govern without having to negotiate and get somebody on side every time” they want to pass legislation, Blidook says. 

“The speaker can break a tie, but if you’re talking about that only being your 20th vote, then you may have situations where you can’t get to a tie, where you have 39 votes,” he explains. “So it may always kind of go against you unless you organize, unless you find ways to get along with an independent or another party somehow.”

Blidook says there “definitely benefit in having a government that has to consult” with other parties and independent MHAs. “I think that the best decisions get made, usually, by broad consensus. So if the governing party has to consult more widely, the assumption would be that,  on some level, this is more democratic.”

Still, Blidook’s skeptical any potential recount will result in a seat change, even in Lewisporte–Twillingate. “Although [18 votes] is a small number, the likelihood of a recount overturning it is probably relatively low,” he says. According to Elections NL, 5,213 votes were counted in that district, with Butt earning 2,570 and Bennett 2,552. 

In last spring’s federal election the riding of Terra Nova–The Peninsulas flipped from Liberal to Conservative following a recount after the initial tally saw Liberal candidate Anthony Germain beat Tory candidate Jonathan Rowe by 12 votes. The recount rendered a 24-count difference giving Rowe a 12-vote victory over Germain. In that case, however, the total number of votes vastly surpassed those of the Lewisporte–Twillingate riding in the provincial election. More than 41,600 people voted in Terra Nova–The Peninsulas.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly named Topsail–Paradise MHA Paul Dinn as Jim Dinn. We regret the error.