TORONTO (LifeSiteNews) — A pro-life and pro-family candidate who ran for trustee for the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) says he will call for a recount after Monday’s late-night election results seemed to show he had won the race by seven votes, only to show that he had lost the race by a single vote the next morning.
Jack Fonseca, the Director of Political Operations at Campaign Life Coalition, tweeted Tuesday that when the polls closed on Monday – the day of the province of Ontario’s municipal elections – candidate Robert Pella – who the CLC describes as a devout, pro-life and pro-family Catholic – had won Etobicoke North’s Catholic trustee race by seven votes. However, when he woke up on Tuesday, the decision had flipped to show that his opponent, incumbent Joseph Martino – who CLC characterizes as a “liberal, anti-Catholic – had won by a single vote.
Fishy vote count in #TCDSB Ward 1.
When I went to bed at 1 AM, the conservative Catholic candidate Robert Pella appeared to have won by 7 votes.
When I woke up at 7:40AM, the votes had flipped. The liberal, anti-Catholic candidate Joe Martino had won by a single vote! #TOpoli pic.twitter.com/WTqFIGpOqI
— Jack Fonseca (@JackFonsec) October 25, 2022
Fonseca wrote: “When I went to bed at 1 AM, the conservative Catholic candidate Robert Pella appeared to have won by 7 votes. When I woke up at 7:40AM, the votes had flipped. The liberal, anti-Catholic candidate Joe Martino had won by a single vote!”
“How is it possible that 16 votes were “found” after 1:00 AM, in the dead of night, while we all slept?” he questioned.
“Are we to believe that some polls stayed open after 1:00am and then somebody fed these ballots into the electronic voting machines, while we were sleeping?”
Fonseca went on to say that Pella should “demand a recount.”
It appears that Pella was of the same mind as Fonseca, as he told the Toronto Star he found the late-night update “downright suspicious” and said he would be asking for a “manual recount” of every single ballot.
“Last night when I went to bed, I believed I had won the election by seven votes,” Pella said. “I was shocked when I woke up this morning and saw it completely reversed.”
The incumbent Martino likewise expressed surprise with his victory, telling the Star, “Last night, I thought I had lost by seven votes,” adding that he only found out he had won after his brother alerted him on Tuesday morning.
The Star wrote that Pella went to bed “before the final count,” but Fonseca’s tweets show that he monitored the outcome long after the polls were closed and into the early hours of the next morning.
The Catholic trustee race in Etobicoke North isn’t the only one in Toronto that might prompt a recount, as other races in the Greater Toronto Area were likewise won by a less than one percent margin.