Recount gives NDP Quebec seat by nine votes

The Montreal Gazette:

Montreal - The orange wave that swept Quebec on May 2 has sunk another boat.

A judicial recount in the riding of Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup has confirmed a narrow win by the New Democratic Party's François Lapointe, by nine votes over incumbent Conservative Bernard Généreux.

The recount, completed late Friday by Justice Gilles Blanchet of Quebec Superior Court, gave Lapointe 17,285 votes to Généreux's 17,276, each about 36 per cent of the 47,545 valid ballots.

Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Arsenault was third with 9,550 votes (20 per cent), Liberal Andrew Cadell fourth with 2,743 votes (six per cent), and the Green Party's Lynette Tremblay fifth with 691 votes (one per cent).

The win gives the NDP 59 of 75 seats in Quebec, and 103 nationwide. The Conservatives drop to five seats in Quebec and 166 across Canada. The Liberals have seven seats in Quebec (all on the island of Montreal), and the Bloc Québécois remain at four.

Automatic recounts have also been ordered in the Ontario ridings of Etobicoke Centre, where Conservative Ted Opitz leads Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj by 25 votes, and Nipising-Timiskaming, where Conservative Jay Aspin leads Liberal Anthony Rota by 15 votes.

Continue reading here.