LUCEA, Hanover – Following three days of legal wrangling the ‘jury’ is still out on who will represent the constituency of Eastern Hanover in the Parliament.

Yesterday, Resident Magistrate George Burton upheld a submission from Harold Brady, the lead attorney representing the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Barrington Gray, for a second magisterial recount of the ballots cast in all 85 boxes in the constituency during the September 3 elections.

The request was made after the resident magistrate refused to allow a number of questionable ballots contained in four boxes in the recount.

Yesterday, Gray’s opponent, the People’s National Party’s D K Duncan, told reporters that the omission of those ballots by the resident magistrate would translate in a win for him by a majority of 12.

When court was adjourned at approximately 4:25 pm, three boxes had been counted in the fresh recount.

Gray was declared winner of the closely contested seat in the final count by a margin of nine votes in the general elections held three weeks ago.

But Duncan filed a petition for a magisterial recount, citing a number of irregularities.

The magisterial recount began last Friday and was expected to end yesterday with the counting of the remaining four contentious boxes.

But yesterday, attorneys Mel Brown and Trevor Ruddock representing Duncan, as well as Brady spent more than three hours making submissions to the resident magistrate concerning the questionable ballots.

Duncan’s team questioned the validity of the ballots in the four boxes and urged the resident magistrate not to accept them, while Gray’s team submitted that those ballots in question should in fact be included in the count.

The Observer was told that the contentious ballots – which numbered about 80 – were torn and not signed by the presiding officers as the space provided for doing so was missing because the counterfoil on the ballots had not been properly torn by the presiding officers.

After listening to the submissions yesterday, RM Burton decided to reject the ballots.

But an apparently incensed Brady told the magistrate that his ruling was inconsistent with a ruling he had made last Friday and called for an adjournment to take the ruling to the Court of Appeal.

His application was, however, denied, but Brady was successful in applying for the second recount of all the 85 boxes that were already counted by the RM.

Shortly after the adjournment of the sitting, an irate Duncan accused the JLP of using delay tactics.

“Mr Brady is just using delaying tactics and putting forward submissions to the judge that he knows cannot be sustained,” said Duncan. “But no one, not even (JLP leader) Bruce Golding can prevent me from being declared the member of parliament for Eastern Hanover.”

Meanwhile, Brady told the Observer that he was confident that Gray would retain the seat.

“I am very confident and that’s why we have taken the approach that we have taken,” he said. “We just want to follow the procedure as laid down by the Representation of the People Act.”

Gray, however, refused to comment on the matter.

The recount resumes today at 9:00 am in the Lucea Resident Magistrate’s Court.