Defendant's lawyers object to PN's request to work seat difference

One of the Labour Party's two delegates on the Electoral Commission was today asked by PN lawyer Paul Borg Olivier to calculate the distribution of parliamentary seats based on first count votes in the March 2013 General elections.

The demand came as Madam Justice Jacqueline Padovani, continued hearing the Constitutional case filed by the Nationalist Party claiming that errors were made in the allocation of votes in the eighth and thirteenth districts.

The Nationalist Party insists that Labour candidates Edward Scicluna and Justyne Caruana, benefitted from these mistakes at the expense of its own candidates Claudette Buttigieg and Frederick Azzopardi.

The Labour delegate on the Electoral Commission, also named Frederick Azzopardi, confirmed his presence at the counting hall in March last year.

He explained how during the eighth count on the thirteenth electoral district, the commission was called to the table as 10 votes had gone missing.

Originally there had been 668 ballots on the table, however following the transfer of votes belonging to Labour candidate Paul Buttigieg, the total number of ballots was 678.

After three re-counts the votes were not found and the parties agreed that the number of non transferable votes would be topped up by 10 votes in order for the figures to match.

A similar incident occurred two counts later when candidate Justyne Caruana surpassed the PN’s Frederick Azzopardi by nine votes.

In the eighth district, the discrepancy was noted in the 13th count.

The PN delegation lodged a complaint with the commission, and demanded a vote recount which was rejected.

Despite both Buttigieg and Azzopardi were elected to parliament through a constitutional amendment to guarantee proportionality, the PN filed a court case.

The witness explained that once a count is closed, the result cannot change. “If one asks for a recount before the closing of the count, that would be different”, he said.  

Azzopardi continued “a packet of 50 votes belonging to PN’s Claudette Buttigieg, were mistakenly placed with those of Michael Asciak. The mistake surfaced when Axiaq was eliminated. But since the counts had been closed the votes were non-transferrable”.

Insisting that the real difference between the two parties should be seven rather than nine seats, PN lawyer Paul Borg Olivier presented the witness with the mathematical formulae outlined at law, and requested Azzopardi to work out the difference based on first count votes.

Defending lawyers Dr Paul Lia and Prof. Ian Refalo, representing the Labour Party and the Electoral Commission respectively, objected to the request.  

While Dr Lia argued that such workings are based on assumptions and would not mirror the facts, Dr Refalo said that the witness could not give an answer as it was based on assumptions.

However the witness told the court he had no qualms in doing the workings, although such calculations cannot be done on the fly. “But it would not change the Commission’s decision” he said.

Representing the PN in this Constitutional Case, Borg Olivier exhibited a document showing the PN had first complained on the eight count. However, lawyer Paul Lia rebutted that the complaint was filed on the tenth count.

Presiding over the Constitutional Case, Jacqueline Padovani told the parties that a ruling over the request made by the plaintiff’s lawyer would be taken in the next sitting.

The case continues on 22 June.