Update| Lawrence picks up six votes, leads by nine, as magisterial recount continues
Published:Saturday | September 12, 2020 | 12:57 PMAlbert Ferguson - Gleaner Writer
Daniel Lawrence, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) challenger for the Westmoreland Eastern constituency in the September 3 general election, has picked up six crucial votes in the magisterial recount still underway at the Westmoreland Parish Court in Savanna-la-Mar.
In court this morning, Lawrence was awarded six of the 14 previously rejected ballots by the Electoral Office of Jamaica, while the People's National Party's Luther Buchanan picked up only one vote.
The votes have placed Lawrence ahead of Buchanan by nine votes, having received 13 to Buchanan's four from 33 rejected ballots counted up to lunchtime.
Forty-eight of the 117 ballot boxes had also been counted up to lunch.
The magisterial recount will resume at 2:00 pm.
Attorneys for Lawrence filed the recount after the Buchanan was declared winner earlier this week, following the returning officer's vote to break 4,834 tie between the candidates after the official recount.
An independent candidate, Haile MiKa'el received 43 votes.
Chairman of the JLP Robert Montague; Minister-designate Floyd Green, Mathew Samuda, Charles Sinclair and member of parliament-elect for Westmoreland Central, George Wright were all present to support Lawrence in court this morning.
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