Glover defends claim of voting irregularities in Manitoba Tory leadership challenge
Shelly Glover says she believes a spreadsheet her campaign team received before Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson was named winner of the Progressive Conservative leadership vote is correct.
Glover, who lost to Stefanson by a narrow margin on Oct. 30, alleges there were irregularities when ballots were counted and she wants a judge to order a new vote.
Glover says she doesn't believe the total count by Progressive Conservative Party election officials, which found she received 49 per cent of the vote.
"It's unfathomable for me to think of how we got to that number," Glover said Tuesday during a cross-examination of her affidavit in Court of Queen's Bench.
When the final results were announced, the ballots totalled 16,546, with Stefanson winning 51 per cent. The win also made Stefanson premier, replacing Brian Pallister, who resigned in September
Progressive Conservative Party leadership has said that the leadership election was fair.
Party president Tom Wiebe told court Monday that campaign leaders were aware the spreadsheet was never intended to be the final tally.
Wiebe, during cross-examination of his affidavit, defended the count and said "that spreadsheet was strictly to tell them who had voted."
Glover's team was given the spreadsheet early in the morning and she told court it included the names of 16,045 people who voted.
Glover, a former member of Parliament, said she did not observe votes being counted. But since the election, she said, she has recounted the total and believes the spreadsheet contains the right number.
"I believe it's correct."
Much of Tuesday's cross-examination focused on members of Glover's campaign team and how they analyzed the spreadsheet, other documents and emails to conclude that voting irregularities had taken place.
Harley Schachter, the lawyer for the Progressive Conservative Party, posed to Glover's team that there were errors in the spreadsheet so it was clearly not meant to be used as a reflection of the total vote.
He added that the reading of numbers by Glover's campaign also doesn't add up.
The challenge is next scheduled for arguments before a judge on Dec. 10.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 30, 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.