The Constitutional Court has turned down requests by two Nationalist candidates to recount the votes in the eighth and 13th districts, saying there was no juridical need to do so. Candidates were not going to suffer any “prejudice” because they were still going to get elected, the court ruled. Under the Constitution, four seats must be credited to the Nationalist Party to achieve representation in Parliament proportional to its number one votes. One of them is going to be assigned to Fredrick Azzopardi, a candidate for Gozo, and another to Claudette Buttigieg Pace, who contested in Birkirkara.
Earlier this week, they both filed urgent constitutional applications requesting a recount in their districts. Mr Azzopardi claimed Labour candidate Justyne Caruana had earned an extra nine votes because of a mistake by the Electoral Commission.
Several electoral commissioners testified that 10 votes had gone missing and the mistake was discovered when the votes of Labour candidate Paul Buttigieg were being distributed. When they sought legal advice, they were told they should go ahead, especially since a recount had been carried out.
Full Article: Court rejects vote recount requests – timesofmalta.com.
