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Post by IceAgeComing on Jul 24, 2024 22:44:18 GMT
Has a candidate ever demanded a recount to attempt to cost an opponent a deposit? That would be a level of spite and pettiness that I would applaud My understanding is you can only request a recount if you are just shy of winning or if you are just shy of keeping your deposit. I admire your level of spite though  I assume a returning officer would call a recount if a candidate leading asked for one if the result was close; but I would assume that has only happened incredibly rarely with only a certain set of incredibly generous leading candidates. |
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Post by johnloony on Jul 24, 2024 23:00:50 GMT
Has a candidate ever demanded a recount to attempt to cost an opponent a deposit? That would be a level of spite and pettiness that I would applaud My understanding is you can only request a recount if you are just shy of winning or if you are just shy of keeping your deposit. I admire your level of spite though Some people are trying to make this more complicated than it actually is. A recount may be requested by any agent or any candidate for any reason. Whether the Returning Officer agrees to a request for a recount is entirely for the R.O. to decide. Whether the R.O. agrees to do a recount would depend entirely on whether the request is "reasonable". What "reasonable" means is a matter of common sense in almost all circumstances. In almost all cases, the R.O. would agree to a request for a recount if the result between the top two candidates is very close, or if a candidate is just below the level fort holding their deposit. Bear in mind that a recount might be requested if the party agents think that the result doesn't look right, or if there is a big discrepancy between the verified total and the counted total, or if it doesn't match the tallying, or if there appears to be an anomaly. For example, in the local elections in Croydon in 2018, the totals for each candidate, as added up by the R.O.'s staff, had one ward with 2 Conservative candidates and 1 Labour candidate winning. We knew that that result could not be accurate, because of the tallies of votes as seen coming out of the five ballot boxes. Upon closer examination, it turned out that the staff had written the numbers for Conservative and Labour the wrong way round for one of the five boxes. It was something ridiculous like 600 v. 100 instead of 100 v. 600. That showed the value of tallying and paying attention. Another example would be the result from Inverness this time round, where the Lib Dem was elected with a majority of c.2k. The recount must have been because of some discrepancy rather than a very close top two. |
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