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O’Leary said he believes the party’s explanation. But “it would be better to simply shine the light of transparency and do a recount and make it crystal clear,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s going to change the outcome,” he added, although admitting, when pressed further, that “I don’t know the outcome” and that’s why he thinks a recount could be a good idea.

But a “recount” in the traditional sense isn’t something the party can do. All ballots that were verified as coming from a legitimate Conservative party member — under oversight of auditors and scrutineers from every campaign — were scanned into a system run by Dominion Voting before paper ballots were destroyed, in accordance with the leadership election rules.

The rules also state results can’t be appealed. “I would want that rule changed,” O’Leary said.

“So the rules that Kevin would’ve agreed to, like every other candidate, state clearly once the results are verified by the chief returning officer and the independent auditor, in this case Deloitte, they are final and binding,” said party spokesman Cory Hann.

“Logistically, yeah, we could do a recount. We’ve got all the ballot images saved; we could run them through the thing again. But it’s all computerized. We hit a button and, guess what, the same result’s going to come out.”

O’Leary was a contestant in the race but dropped out at the end of April, about a month before election day, to endorse fellow candidate Maxime Bernier. Bernier ended up losing by just under two per cent of the final tally to Andrew Scheer.

Both Bernier and O’Leary have publicly said they support Scheer as new leader. Bernier emphasized on Twitter Tuesday afternoon he supports Scheer “unconditionally.”