Jef Huyghe was general manager in Heuvelland for a while, until he was fired. Tensions between him and the current mayor Wieland De Meyer ran high. Jef Huyghe stood up for N-VA Plus in October. He claimed that on election day mistakes had happened when counting votes in an office in Kemmel. For example, there was a striking difference between the number of ballots cast for the municipal council and those for the provincial council.
According to Huyghe, these are irregularities during the voting and counting process (in particular regarding polling station 4 and counting station 2), when using powers of attorney (an abnormally high number of votes by proxy in polling stations 3,4 and 5, which suggests that proxies have been recruited), presence of the party leader from the Municipal Interests list during the counting process (particularly in and around counting station 2), political influence during the closed period.
There were mainly irregularities “about the manner of designation of the chairman of polling station 4, the method of selection of the assessors of polling station 4, the lack of correct sealing of the ballot papers from polling station 4, the careless and incomplete handling of the official report and other administrative formalities, the transport of the ballot papers from polling station 4 to counting station 2, the continued lack of clarity as to how 100 ballot papers were processed, the failure to supervise the counting operations at all times by the chairwoman of the counting agency,” it says read the Council report.
“The Council notes that the chairman of polling station 4, whose neutral character can be seriously questioned, has created for himself, on the basis of sufficiently precise and consistent actions, a playing field in which he had the opportunity without any form of control to interfere with the results of the vote.”