Returning officer committed 'unlawful act'

That's the finding from the Acting Attorney General who says there are 'clearly lessons to be learned' after conducting his own enquiry. 

 

Unsuccessful candidate Louise Whitelegg raised concerns the day after the vote on September 22nd - saying she could not 'get the numbers to add up'.

 

In response returning officer Simon Cain, a partner at Appleby, decided to open up the sealed ballot papers to try and locate the 103 ballots which were unaccounted for. 

 

They were found - along with a clerical error which had seen him write down the wrong number of ballots cast in Kirk Michael - the missing votes had no 'material effect' on the count. 

 

However Acting AG John Quinn became concerned his actions in opening the sealed papers, recounting them and communicating the 'corrected' vote may have constituted an illegal process. 

 

He therefore deemed it in the 'public interest' to conduct an enquiry where he found Mr Cain was not entitled to open the ballot papers.

 

Despite this he deemed it inappropriate to prosecute him saying Mr Cain had acted with 'good intentions' and not in any way to seek to 'corrupt the process'.