Windsor cliffhanger — Day after election, local riding still in play

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Hold on a minute, Windsor area voters — might a Liberal red buoy reappear in that sea of Tory blue that swept across Southwest Ontario on election night?

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As of noon on Tuesday, Elections Canada was still processing some special ballots, and that final count might yet push Mark Carney’s current minority government into majority territory.

Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore was one of about a dozen federal ridings still in play.

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Here’s the math: Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli was hanging on to a 359-vote lead over Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk, with 281 of 282 polls reporting. But as of noon on the day after the election, there could be many more votes than needed to bridge that gap still uncounted.

It was a nailbiter or a cliffhanger evening all election night long, and into the early hours, as the two Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore frontrunners maintained an excruciatingly close gap as the count pressed on.

The marathon tabulation was suspended in the early hours of Tuesday, with Elections Canada saying it would resume later that morning.

With no official confirmation at the time, media after midnight were calling Borrelli the presumptive winner, with 31,682 votes (45.7 per cent) to Kusmierczyk’s 31,323 (45.1 per cent).

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Here’s where it gets interesting: There were two ‘special ballot’ polls in Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore, containing an estimated 3,500 votes. One of those remains uncounted, although it was not known Tuesday morning how many remained in that last uncounted poll.

‘Special ballot voting‘ is not unusual. Any elector who doesn’t want to, or who can’t, vote at an advance or election day poll — say if they’re travelling — can vote by mail or in person at any Elections Canada office.

Electors voting by special ballot must still prove their identity and address, be a Canadian citizen and at least 18 years old on election day.

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A party needs 172 seats in the 343-seat House of Commons to form a majority government. As of midday Tuesday, the Liberals were elected or leading in 168, so they only need to flip a couple of those close ridings to meet the majority cutoff.

Elections Canada’s full results are expected later Tuesday afternoon.

Kusmierczyk wasn’t the only local incumbent swept away in southwestern Ontario’s blue tide. The NDP’s longtime MP in Windsor West, Brian Masse, lost to Conservative Harb Gill.

This side of Hamilton and Waterloo, the only ridings in Southwest Ontario that aren’t Conservative are two Liberal holdings in the city of London.

dschmidt@postmedia.com

twitter.com/schmidtcity

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