A former mayoral candidate is taking issue with last month’s municipal election, but not when it comes to the mayoral race. 
The municipality issued a news release this morning. “The municipality has been served with an application challenging the results of the October 22 municipal election regarding the Ward 1 (West Kent) councillor’s race. The application (which does not challenge the results in any other ward or that of the mayor’s position) will be heard before the Superior Court of Justice.”
Councillor Mark Authier says the challenge was issued by Robert Powers, and from what he’s been told, it’s more about the breakdown of voting locations, rather than the total number of votes cast.
“What, apparently is happening is that some of the locations, they wrote the location number in ink and it doesn’t seem like it picked up on the machines,” Authier says. “For some reason, Mr. Powers is going in on that basis, which actually, form what I’m being told, is not even anything that needs to even be on there, it’s more for councillors that ran to know where they were either strong or weak.”
Mark Authier and Melissa Harrigan were elected to council with 1,991 and 1,682 votes respectively, while incumbent Bryon Fluker (1,050), Mark Pastorius (252) and Jordan Dell (88) were not elected.
The matter is scheduled to be heard in Superior Court on January 2nd. Chatham-Kent’s chief legal officer, John Norton, says there will be no further comment from the municipality as the matter is before the courts.
The CKXS Newsroom has reached out to Robert Powers for comment, but at the time of publishing has not received a call back.
In the meantime, the new council, including Authier and Harrigan, will be sworn in to office on December 3rd.