Grits take N.L. byelection despite ballot boo-boo

A Liberal candidate plucked a narrow victory Monday night in a Newfoundland and Labrador byelection, witha counting errorbriefly giving the win to the governing Progressive Conservatives.

Dwight Ball won by an 18-vote margin, Elections Newfoundland and Labrador reported Monday night. Earlier in the evening, the electoral office's website had PC candidate Darryl Kelly winning by 12 votes.

"There's no question it was a roller-coaster," Ball said late Monday night.

One of the 34 stations neglected to count 30 votes that had been cast for Ball when numbers were reported to the electoral office's website, chief electoral officer Chuck Furey said Monday night.

The extra 30 votes pushed Ball to 2,156 votes, just ahead of Kelly's 2,138 votes.

"It was very simply an honest mistake," Furey told CBC News.

New Democratic candidate Shelley Senior was well behind with119 votes.

Kelly said he was disappointed to see victory slip through his fingers.

"Obviously, I was excited," he said, describing his reaction to the erroneous report that he had won. "The next call I got, I lost by 18 [votes]."

The Progressive Conservatives have not yet decided on whether to order a recount. Under provincial law, the electoral officer must order a recount if a margin of victory is 10 votes or under. Above that, the decision is at a candidate's discretion.

Lead swung between parties during evening

The reversal of fortune shocked both Tory and Liberal supporters. A would-be victory party at PC headquarters was extinguished, with some volunteers leaving in anger.

At Liberal headquarters, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, with once-downbeat Grits celebrating their first byelection win since Premier Danny Williams took office in 2003.

The Tories and Liberals had each held the lead as polling stations reported their counts.

The district, which includes Deer Lake and surrounding area on the island's west coast, was made vacant last month by the resignation of Tory backbencher Kathy Goudie.

In her resignation, Goudie cited stress from having been named in an auditor general's report which cited multiple instances of double billing of her constituency allowance.

The PCs swept three byelections last Thursday, winning re-election in Ferryland, Kilbride and Port au Port districts.

Created in a 1975 distribution, Humber Valley has elected PC candidates more often than not over the years. The district was solidly Tory until 1996, when Rick Woodford who had held the seat for 11 years as a PC crossed the floor and was elected as a Liberal.

Woodford retired before the 2003 election, whenGoudie defeated Ball by 289 votes to reclaim the seat for the Tories. Woodford was killed in a 2006 canoeing accident.

Monday's byelection gives the Liberals 12 of the 48 seats in the house of assembly. The PCs have 34, while the NDP have two.