A superior court justice has ordered a third count of some of the ballots in Kitchener's ward nine, where the winner of the municipal election was decided by one vote.
A computerized recount of all of the ballots in November returned the same results as those on election night, showing Frank Etherington as the winner of the municipal council seat in ward nine.
Debbie Chapman, who lost the election by a single ballot, then petitioned the court for a second, manual recount.
She argued in court that voters' intentions weren't considered on some ballots. Those ballots were overvotes, or ballots that had been marked in more than one place.
Chapman believes several of the ballots considered overvotes, which were not counted towards the official results, showed that voters intended to vote for her.
Superior Court Justice Patrick Flynn says there are reasonable grounds to conclude the election results are in doubt.
He has ordered a manual recount of the 40 overvotes, to try to determine what the voters intended when they cast their ballots.
The city clerk in Kitchener must now set a date for the manual recount, even though Etherington was already sworn in at a ceremony in early December.
