The Lake Babine Nation (LBN) election held on July 10, 2009 brought about an appeal.

A total of nine petitioners submitted written correspondence to the Election Appeals Board (EAB) during the recent appeals process.

Sitting on the EAB were Jesse Fairly, Lyle Graham and Alex Tett.

According to the EAB board several submissions contained multiple appeals so that the appeals totaled a final amount of 50 regarding the result and the election process.

The EAB recently released a decision with regards to the validity of the LBN July election in direct response to the appeals received.

Despite the number of appeals the EAB's decision in each case was identical.

"The appeal fails," the EAB report said.

Subsequently the EAB affirmed the final election results posted by the electoral officer in the notice of July 16, 2009 would stand.

According to the EAB the uniform decision on the appeals cannot be interpreted to mean that the 2009 Lake Babine Nation election process was flawless.

"The election process was not perfect, but the flaws were not serious enough to make the results invalid and require a re-election," noted the EAB board in the report.

A compressed election process lasting just 45 days rather than the required 60 day period did lead to some code violations being recorded.

According to the EAB there was no apparent common factor for explaining why the appeals that were put forth after the election failed.

"Some appeals seemed to misunderstand the nature of the appeal process," the EAB report noted.

"Some appeals cited no grounds for appeal, while others based their appeal on more than one ground."

According to the EAB 75 per cent of the appeals that were received were based on alleged code violations affecting the Lake Babine Nations final election result.

Of these 75 per cent approximately one third succeeded in proving violations, but none of the violations affected the election result.

The election code says an appeal based on a code violation will only succeed if such a violation may have affected the election result.

"Thus LBN's own customary election process tolerates some electoral process flaws," the EAB board noted in the report.

"From a legal perspective, LBN's election process is adversarial, there is not tie, there is no compromise, one party wins and the other party loses," noted the EAB board report.