Thursday, March 25, 2010

"... a flawed process ..."

Good Day Readers:
With the next MMF election rapidly approaching we thought you might find the following article instructive.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
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Lawyer slams Metis election decision
Winnipeg Sun May 5, 2004

A judge cast a cloud of doubt over the Manitoba Metis Federation’s political process by setting aside the results of the group’s last presidential election , a lawyer argued yesterday.

“It is neither necessary nor … wanted for the courts to intervene,” said Murray Trachtenberg, (emphais ours) lawyer for the MMF. The judgment will not achieve any correction of a flawed process. The judgment will be to greater hardship … widespread disenfranchisement and a climate of political uncertainty.”

Four months ago, Queen’s Bench Justice Perry Schulman set aside the results of the MMF’s March 2003 presidential election. David Chartrand beat former lieutenant governor Yvon Dumont in a 20-vote count.

Dumont claimed the list of voters was amended without authority, that election officials had added 458 names to the polling books on the day of the election, that no advance polls were made available and that 657 voters were permitted to vote by mail- in ballots, even though election bylaws didn’t allow for it.

Schulman found the addition of names to the voters list before the election and at the polls was done without authority and the chief electoral officer should not have replaced advance polls with mail-in polls.

- staff

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