Recount leaves West Kelowna council elections intact

A one vote difference between the sixth and seventh place finishers in the West Kelowna city council election on Saturday triggered a recount over the past two days.

In the end, the city has ruled that the election-night result stands so Garrett Millsap has been elected to council while Tom Groat fell short.

“Our priority is to demonstrate fairness and transparency in our election process,” Chief Election Officer Corinne Boback said in a news release issued today, Oct. 19.

“We conducted an electronic and manual tally over the past two days to ensure accuracy of the ballots cast.”

The release did not provide the final number of the votes.

The other five people elected to council were Stephen Johnston, Rick de Jong, Tasha Da Silva, Jason Friesen and Carol Zanon. Gord Milsom was re-elected mayor.

They will be sworn into office during a ceremony at the Cove Lakeside Resort on Nov. 1.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics