Another judicial recount has flipped a federal seat back towards the Liberals, this time in the hotly contested Ontario riding of Milton East—Halton Hills South.
A judge declared Liberal Candidate Kristina Tesser Derksen as the winner in the riding by just 21 votes.
On the night of the election, Conservative candidate Parm Gill was declared the winner by 288 votes.
Following a validation process Elections Canada discovered 412 rejected ballots, causing Liberal candidate Kristina Tesser Derksen to take the lead by 29 votes.
A judicial recount of the votes in the riding was automatically triggered due to a difference of 0.1 per cent of the vote between the top two contenders for the seat.
After the judicial recount, it was found that instead of 412 rejected ballots, as noted post-validation, there were only 328 rejected ballots.
After the recount, 18 ballots seem to have been added to the total count, which had been 66,995 after the validation process and now stands at 67,013.
There are still two ridings where judicial recounts are underway. One recount is taking place in Terra Nova–Peninsulas in Newfoundland and Labrador, where Liberals were found to be in the lead over Conservatives by 0.1 per cent.
The other is in Windsor–Tecumseh—Lakeshore in Ontario where Conservatives were found to have a lead over the Liberals by 0.1 per cent of the vote.
Following the two judicial recounts, Liberals are currently sitting at 170 seats, with the Conservatives down to 143. 172 seats are needed for a majority government.
Elections Canada was not immediately available for comment.
This is a developing story.