this post was submitted on 15 May 2025

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Elections Canada says Terrebonne vote is final, despite ‘error’ with special ballot (www.thestar.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by Sunshine to c/canada

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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[–] JohnnyCanuck 7 points 2 weeks ago

Archive: https://archive.is/rIrjW

[–] Rentlar 7 points 2 weeks ago

The courts have the final say in a judicial recount. Even if the reason the vote wasn't counted wasn't the voter's mistake, unless it is part of a case, in the eyes of a court it might as well be someone waving junk mail with a sticker on it.

A separate case challenging the result due to these irregularities can be brought which could end in a different outcome, but as far as things are currently, the regular election process is complete.

[–] Mongostein 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Here’s a better article from CBC for those of us who don’t want to deal with their paywall:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/terrebonne-elections-canada-1.7535347

[–] corsicanguppy 5 points 2 weeks ago

Prepare for Conservatives latching onto this error as a conspiracy to lose them votes - as a lame third-place duck here - and harping on it with a laser focus for years. Unless Mark wears a brown suit or something.

[+] Sunshine -14 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] JohnnyCanuck 38 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They're doing everything by the book. They never saw that ballot and can't just count a vote because someone said their ballot was returned. It will have to go to court at this point but EC has done nothing wrong in terms of the recount. You make it sound like a conspiracy that they counted more votes for the Liberals.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

It will have to go to court at this point but EC has done nothing wrong in terms of the recount.

Agreed. This isn't the step where the EC did wrong - it was earlier in putting the wrong postal code on the envelope that caused it to be returned.

You make it sound like a conspiracy that they counted more votes for the Liberals.

Not the OP but - I'd agree that this is definitely not the case. It seems to instead be a clear and accidental mistake on the part of whoever handled the printing of the envelope.

Now, while it's definitely troubling if the overall vote can be swung by an "administrative error" of some sort, there's no evidence that this happened more than in this one case. And thus it only matters because the final call was done to having a single vote more for the Liberal candidate.

If it was down to even just two votes for the Liberal candidate instead, getting this lost vote counted would not have changed the results. So definitely not a conspiracy.

They’re doing everything by the book.

I guess the point here is - laws can be changed. Perhaps not retroactively this specific case, but going forward the laws can be updated to better handle situations like this in the future where EC made a mistake.

This is a totally different situation, but when I went to exchange my expired driver's license at Service Ontario, one of the first workers that I saw there made a mistake and incorrectly refused my abstract.

I had to return after a weekend, and spoke with someone else who acknowledged the issue. At this point I was technically outside the 1-year window by a couple of days to be able to perform the exchange - but I wouldn't have been if not for their mistake. Luckily for me, they were empowered to correct it and accept the exchange.

So - is there a compelling reason to avoid granting EC the ability to correct their own mistakes, particularly in a clear-cut situation like this one?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

“Any vote that doesn’t get to us on time to wherever it’s meant to go, whether it’s the local office or to our accounting facility in Ottawa, the law basically dictates that it can’t be counted,” he said. “So even if it’s something that happens as a result of an error on our part, there’s really no mechanism for that to be counted.”

McKenna said the only thing that could lead to a change in the result is someone officially contesting it.

“Anyone can make an application to a judge to say that they want the results of the election to be reviewed,” he said. “There’s a possibility that that happens ... as far as I’m aware, nobody’s put forward such an application yet.”

This is your moment.

Edit: and they deleted the comment lmao, very big of you @[email protected]

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Agreed. What an unfortunate finding by EC. As a matter of principle I believe every vote should have a chance to get counted.

[–] JohnnyCanuck 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They never saw the vote. They can't count it, it has to go to court. They're following the law.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

They’re following the law.

Never stated otherwise.

They never saw the vote. They can’t count it,

I get what you're saying, but it's still disturbing that EC can cause a mistake of this nature and not have the ability to rectify it.

Certainly this isn't the worst case of disenfranchisement by Elections Canada (see for example https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/this-is-unacceptable-polling-station-problems-prompt-calls-for-investigation/ )

it has to go to court.

Thinking it over, there's a good counterargument here. Even if EC could directly order a by-election in this case (or even was given the power to just outright count the vote), someone would contest this and it'd likely end up before a judge at some point anyways. So might as well just go direct.

[–] UnderFreyja 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Then make an application to a judge to challenge the result and they will have to count it.

Truly, it should be the BQ that does it. I'm guessing they will in the coming days.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Then make an application to a judge to challenge the result and they will have to count it.

I'm not sure that I'm eligible to do this..

Truly, it should be the BQ that does it. I’m guessing they will in the coming days.

Agreed. This isn't so bad, at least there's a way forward.

[–] UnderFreyja 2 points 2 weeks ago

Any citizen can :)