Press Release - Recount Confirms It's Allt and Hofland for Ward 3

The final dangling thread from the October 27 Municipal Election has been tied off. Last night, city council voted in favour of a recount to be performed for Guelph's Ward 3 after five votes separated the second place June Hofland and the third place Craig Chamberlain. The result at stake was the second council seat in Ward 3, the first one already secured by Phil Allt. In the end, it looks like the original count was correct, and Hofland is the winner of that second Ward 3 seat, beating Chamberlain by just five votes.

Here's the press release from the City of Guelph:

Guelph, ON, November 18, 2014 – Today the City of Guelph completed the recount of all Ward 3 ballots as directed by City Council at yesterday’s meeting.

Recount of contest – Ward 3

• Phil Allt – 2,299; 22.40%
• June Hofland – 2,050; 19.97%
• Craig Chamberlain – 2,045;  19.92%
• Maggie Laidlaw – 1,861; 18.13%
• Bob Moore – 1,131; 11.02%
• Jason Dodge – 878; 8.55%

As per the Municipal Election Act, the ballots were recounted in the same manner in which they were counted on October 27. Guelph’s City Clerk re-entered the online ballots and City staff inserted the advanced in-person and election day ballots into the same tabulators used at the Ward 3 voting locations.

“At the conclusion of the recount, the results remain the same as the official results released on October 28,” says Stephen O’Brien, City Clerk. “It’s not surprising the results are the same—tabulators and technology used in today’s elections eliminate most of the potential for human error and offer a high level of accuracy. But given the close results in Ward 3, a recount was the right thing to do, in part so the community and candidates could be assured the results were correct.”

With the election results finalized, City staff will begin to look deeper into the election data.

“We introduced a number of changes this year to make voting easier, more accessible and convenient for the community in hopes that voter participation would increase,” says O’Brien. “On election night, we saw voter participation did in fact increase by 11 per cent. Next we will look at how participation was spread across the city to see if and where we can make improvements in 2018.”

Election statistics will be posted on guelph.ca when they are complied.

Phil Allt and Councillor June Holfand will be inaugurated along with fellow Council members on December 1.