BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — The leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in St Elizabeth says a decision to take the result of the March 26 parish council election in the parish’s New Market Division to the Appeals Court will help to provide a clearer path for electoral practice in Jamaica.

At the core of the issue, they contend, is the question of what should constitute the “intent” of the voter in making his or her mark. In Jamaica’s electoral system an ‘X’ is the mark used by voters to indicate their preference on the ballot paper.

The JLP said that in the case of New Market, a few ballots that were rejected because they were ticked or had markings that were perceived “to be not quite an X” made the essential difference as their candidate Ernest Hendricks lost by two votes on magisterial recount Wednesday.

“We feel that this case is bigger than just a division; it is a precedent-setting case,” Chris Tufton, deputy leader of the JLP with responsibility for western Jamaica, including St Elizabeth, told journalists.

Tufton claims the entire exercise will benefit Jamaica in the long run. “In a sense this case is more than the New Market Division because it (will) bring clarity to the electoral process … to returning officers, electoral office… to the laws of our country. In other jurisdictions, the UK for instance, the law specifically states the X or any other symbol that suggests intent (that) the voter wanted to vote for a particular candidate. In this case, we really ought to focus on the substantive issue which is: what was the voter’s intent …” said Tufton.

His comments came shortly after the magisterial recount confirmed the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Cyril Martin as the winner of the New Market divisional poll.

Arguing that there was a “discrepancy between the decision of the judge and the intent of the voter”, Tufton said the JLP intended to take it to the “appeals court and to any other court in order to get a judgment in favour of the intent of the voter …”

When the magisterial recount, presided over by Resident Magistrate Stanley Clarke, ended at minutes after 5:00 pm Wednesday, the figures showed Martin polling 1,086 to Hendricks’ 1,084. Previously, the official figures had shown Martin winning by one vote — 1,086 votes to 1,085.

Hendricks’ lawyer Jeremy Palmer — himself a parish councillor and, until March 26, the mayor of Black River — explained that the one-vote change came about because a ballot which had been accepted as a vote for the JLP by the returning officer in the official count was rejected by RM Clarke.

As explained by Palmer: “When it (rejected ballot) came up, the lawyer for Mr Martin (Donald Gittens) objected, saying it is a classic (mark) that you would make (for an X) if you were doing algebra … and he claims that there was no intersection of what would be the two semicircles …”

According to Palmer, who has 14 days to file in the Appeals Court, the JLP argued that there was “a clear intention” by the voter. The JLP felt that “the X was beside the bell (JLP symbol), beside Mr Hendricks’ name and was in fact an X and we strongly recommended to the judge that it be accepted”.

However, Palmer said that ballot was “thrown out” and Martin’s majority was increased from one to two.

Unperturbed by the legal arguments, Martin, the first rastafarian to be elected to the St Elizabeth Parish Council, and who was warmly greeted by a handful of comrades outside the Black River Courthouse following the magisterial recount, said he was looking ahead to his job as councillor. He identified “bad roads” in the New Market Division as his first order of business and said he wanted to work with Hendricks to improve conditions in New Market.

Hendricks has represented New Market as a councillor since 1998. “He is my friend and I will work with him s a former councillor for the division (since) I believe he will have some guidance for me,” said Martin.

Chairman of the PNP’s Region Five Wensworth Skeffery (St Elizabeth and Manchester) said that based on “feedback”, the party was confident the result would hold.

‘We are not perturbed,” said Skeffery. “We respect the democratic right of the JLP candidate to take the matter further but we are confident.”