2 days ago
Reform candidate opens court battle after losing election on ‘coin toss'
A Reform UK candidate who lost a council election when a tie was settled with a random draw has asked the High Court to overturn the result.
Liz Williams was beaten by Hannah Robson, a Green party candidate, in May's local elections, after several counts left them tied on 889 votes.
The counsellor for the Littletons ward, in Worcestershire, was then chosen at random. Two ballot papers were placed in a box and Ms Robson's name was drawn out to secure her the victory for the county council seat.
Now Ms Williams has handed an 'election petition' to the High Court in London, claiming the result should be declared void as the victory was decided by a 'toss of the coin'.
At a preliminary hearing this week, Mrs Justice Yip said the petition, naming Ms Robson and Vic Allison, the deputy returning officer, as respondents, will be decided at the High Court later this year.
According to Ms Williams's petition, the 'result was determined only by folding and placing two used election ballot papers into a ballot box and the deputy returning officer pulling one out'.
The petition states the process was 'open to fraud and corruption' and did not allow the candidates time to seek legal advice before they were 'pressured into accepting the process in principle'.
Ms Williams said she was not able to 'witness the entire process without obstruction'.
She added: 'I could not see the box for all of the preparation and was not included in that.
'I did not agree to a third person shuffling the papers... Only the returning officer should have had their hand in the box.'
Footage posted online shows the returning officer putting his hand into a large black box and pulling out a slip of paper, before declaring the winner.
Ms Robson was said to have won by 890 to 889 votes.
Ms Robson was not represented during the preliminary hearing this week, but Timothy Straker KC, representing the returning officer, said he would apply to dismiss Ms Williams' petition later this year.
It is not the first time a council election in the UK has ended in a dead heat.
In Blyth in 2007, the winner in one ward was chosen by the drawing of straws, while a candidate in Yorkshire in 2022 offered to play poker to decide the winner, before going on to draw straws.
Electoral Commission guidance states: 'When two or more candidates have the same number of votes, and the addition of a vote would entitle any of those candidates to be declared elected, you must decide between the candidates by lot.
'Whichever candidate wins the lot is treated as though they had received an additional vote that enables them to be declared elected.'
