Marty Morantz increases lead to win Winnipeg riding for Conservatives; Liberal Doug Eyolfson concedes race

WINNIPEG — After a tight race in the Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley riding, Conservative incumbent Marty Morantz has been re-elected after increasing his lead over Liberal candidate Doug Eyolfson, who conceded the race on Tuesday.

But a recently completed validated vote count, which involves a returning officer reviewing the addition of votes at each poll, has given Morantz the win by a wider margin of 460 votes, 18,111 votes for Morantz and 17,651 for Eyolfson.

"The purpose of the validation is for the returning officer to identify and correct errors in arithmetic, typos, data-entry errors and other issues affecting the count," Elections Canada spokesperson Natasha Gauthier wrote in an email Tuesday.

"Validation happens in front of observers from the candidates and/or parties, and is a normal and important part of the democratic process. It is very common to see changes in the count following validation."

One error caught in the validation process was a transcription error that involved results written out by hand, Gauthier added.

On Tuesday, Eyolfson tweeted that a “validation of the results process has revealed we are no longer within the margin of votes that triggers an automatic recount.” Eyolfson went on to congratulate Morantz on the win.

Last week, CTV News Winnipeg reported a difference of 24 votes between the two candidates, which meant a judicial recount would take place.

According to Elections Canada, a recount must take place if the difference in votes is less than one one-thousandth of the total votes cast.

With Morantz's re-election, all incumbent candidates in Manitoba have been re-elected.

A map of all 2021 federal election results can be found online.

- With files from CTV’s Danton Unger and the Canadian Press.