Surrey-Guildford ballot box battle goes to court today
Elections BC, NDP minister want publication bans, sealing orders
Lawyers for the head of Elections BC and the NDP’s Surrey-Guildford MLA are scheduled to ask a B.C. Supreme Court judge in New Westminster today for orders to ban the publication of names of voters.
The hearing coincides with the beginning of the last week of the spring Legislature session.
The NDP’s Garry Begg won the riding by 22 votes after a judicial recount last November. Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa held a 103-vote edge after the polls closed on election day. Premier David Eby made Begg his Solicitor General and the win gave the NDP a 47-seat majority in the new 93-seat Legislature.
Randhawa filed a B.C. Supreme Court petition in January, aimed at invalidating the results and forcing a by-election. Randhawa claimed at least 46 invalid votes were counted, at least 23 non-residents voted and at least two people voted more than once.
Begg wants names of voters, their family members and their home addresses sealed and banned from publication.
Boegman wants all documents that contain names of voters sealed indefinitely and for parties to file redacted versions of documents to conceal names of individuals.
In response, Randhawa’s lawyer, Sunny Uppal, said they “have failed to satisfy the test for a sealing order and publication ban.” Randhawa will consent to Elections BC’s proposal if the ban does not apply to any affidavit, statutory declaration or statement voluntarily sworn.
Uppal told theBreaker.news on May 23 that Begg’s filings contain inadmissible evidence and are aimed at politicizing the litigation and attack Randhawa and the Conservative Party.
Randhawa originally found 45 voting irregularities, including 21 mail-in votes from the Argyll Lodge addiction recovery house across the street from the polling station at the Guildford Park Secondary School. Randhawa’s investigation also found that the NDP received a $1,400 donation from a person with the same name as Argyll manager Baljit Kandola.