Judicial recount for Milton East-Halton Hills riding to begin next week

A riding in Ontario is going red after a vote validation process showed a Liberal candidate won by fewer than 30 votes. CTV's Krista Simpson reports.

A judicial recount for an Ontario riding will begin next week, after the area flipped from blue to red during a validation process.

Preliminary results for the riding Milton East-Halton Hills showed Conservative candidate Parm Gill had won the riding during the federal election with 32,186 votes.

However, days later, validated results from Elections Canada indicated Liberal candidate Kristine Tesser Derksen was the actual winner with 32,130 votes while Parm was close behind at 32,101 votes - a difference of less than 30 votes.

The validated results included 412 rejected ballots.

An official recount is automatically triggered when the difference between the first- and second- place candidates are within one one-thousandth of the total number of ballots received.

In a news release on Friday, Chief Electoral Officer of Canada Stéphane Perrault officially announced the recount.

It will be completed by Justice Leonard Ricchetti of the Superior Court of Ontario. The recount is set to begin on May 13 in Milton, Ont. The results will be published on Elections Canada’s website once the process is complete.