Suood defends disputed council election ballots at Supreme Court

Former Supreme Court Justice Husnu Al Suood on Thursday challenged a High Court ruling that invalidated three ballots cast in the recent M. Veyvah Council election, arguing that the votes should not have been rejected because of the presence of small ink dots.

The disputed ballots were cast for Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) candidate Ahsan Naeem.

According to the original election result, Ahsan received 121 votes while People's National Congress (PNC) candidate Mohamed Nazeeh secured 119 votes.

Following a petition filed at the High Court, three ballots cast for Ahsan were declared invalid due to the presence of ink dots. The ruling changed the outcome of the election, reducing Ahsan's total to 118 votes and leaving Nazeeh with 119 votes.

Ahsan appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, where the first hearing of the case was held on Thursday.

Appearing as legal counsel for Ahsan, Husnu Al Suood argued that evidence submitted to the High Court indicated the dots could have originated during the ballot printing process.

He referred to a letter submitted by the Elections Commission, which included information from Novelty Printers, the company responsible for printing the ballot papers. According to the letter, completely eliminating minor printing marks during production is not always possible.

Suood argued that the General Elections Act specifies the circumstances under which a ballot may be invalidated and that the presence of minor printing marks is not listed among those grounds.

He also contended that the burden of proving the dots were not printing defects rested with the petitioner, rather than the Elections Commission.

"While all three ballots were marked with blue ink, the dots in question are black," Suood told the court. He further noted that the Elections Commission had stated that voters were not permitted to bring black pens into polling stations.

Suood also raised several other arguments before the court:

Representing Nazeeh, legal counsel argued that the Elections Commission could not conclusively guarantee that only blue pens entered polling stations. The lawyer submitted that, because the source of the dots had not been verified, they should be treated as deliberate markings.

The case is being heard by a three-member Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Abdulla Hameed, Justice Hussain Shaheed and Justice Mohamed Saleem.

The hearing began at 10:30 a.m. and was adjourned for afternoon prayers before resuming later in the day.