Jerome! (I)

Jerome! is on with the radio host, spouting – what is the non-defamatory word for what he’s spouting? – spouting stuff about his beliefs surrounding Confederation.

That’s what you have to call them: beliefs.

He cites a recent conversation with the late Jim Halley, who is now, both unfortunately and, for conspiracy theorists, conveniently, beyond being examined, let alone cross-examined.

The vote was rigged, Mr. Halley said. And that’s good enough for the Minister of Justice, who once upon a time inhabited courtrooms where quaint things like silk and robes and evidence mattered.

“There was a ballot box that went missing,” he said.

A ballot box went missing, supposedly.

A ballot box.

In the second round of balloting in the 1948 referenda, Confederation polled 78,323 votes to 71,334 for Responsible Government. That’s a margin of 6,989 ballots cast.

Thus, what Jerome! is trying to tell us, is that the vote turned on the result of a missing ballot box – “a” – singular – which not only contained nearly 7,000 ballots, but 7,000 ballots which, in order to have changed the results of the vote, must all have been cast, every single one of them, for Responsible Government.

This corner is not well placed to question Jerome!’s expertise in the sadly obsolete practice of controverted elections law, electoral fraud having been eradicated from the province recently, but, from a non-expert perspective, a single ballot box stuffed with 7,000 ballots, every single one cast for the same side, that, that would be a pretty persuasive prima facie indication of vote-rigging.