Plural for blood-sucking insects

Recently, Arbeiderparti (Labour) politician Yousuf Gilani essentially got caught red-handed for trying to buy votes in the local election in Drammen, or rather - one of his henchmen got caught trying to buy votes off of amongst others drug addicts in exchange for the princely reward of 50 NOK. Following what I can only hope was a serious investigation, the City Council of Drammen in their infinite wisdom ruled that the tampering did not affect the electoral outcome. Hence, there is no need for declaring the election null and void and repeating the process.

Maybe I missed something here.............unless they know EXACTLY how many votes we're talking about, and that this number is smaller than the uncertainty associated with the ballot counting process, which in a city the size of Drammen ought to be plus or minus one, then they have no earthly idea about whether or not the outcome was significantly affected. Methinks they assume too much. Also, I think it's a travesty that they don't throw Gilani's ass in jail or at the very least blackball him from ever entering the political arena ever again. This does nothing to reduce the massive contempt for politician which is steadily decreasing voter turnout. In this local election, there were a number of districts where turnout was way under 50%, and this ain't helping.