Canada’s elections says he is investigating after a voter in a Quebec driving was presented with an envelope that had been returned to the sender.
Inside it was a vote for the Québécois block in Terrebonne Riding, where, as is, the incoming liberal parliamentarian Tatiana Auguste was declared winner by a vote after several counts.
Canada’s elections said that the Directorate of Return printed in the return envelope of this voter was incorrect, specifically part of the postal code.
“We are still working to gather all the facts. We can contact it as soon as we have more information,” the agency said in a statement to CBC News.
The voter, however, remains annoying of the situation. The Terrebonne resident, Emmanuelle Bossé, said she sent her vote on time for the federal elections of April 28.
“I was not the address of Canada’s elections in the envelope,” he told Radio-channel. “Canada’s elections hit this label on the envelope. I had nothing to fill. I just had to put my vote there.”
She says she sent her vote on April 5 and was returned on May 2.
The victory a vote of Auguste was very unusual, appearing in international headlines and attracting significant attention on social networks, since it seemed to turn a driving in the block.
On the night of the elections, Terrebonne initially went to Auguste for 35 votes. But after a standard validation process, the result turned to the titular block of Québécois Nathalie Sinclair-Degagné, for 44 votes.
This triggered an automatic judicial count.
A few days later, the results of the count showed that Auguste had won by a single vote.
“I think it’s the first time in recent history,” said political commentator Frédéric Bérard.
To recapitulate: the day of the elections, the voters go to the surveys and cast their vote. Once the surveys are closed, the elections of the workers of Canada tell the ballots and report the results to an officer returning. The results are published online.
Then comes the validation process.
This is when Canada’s elections verify twice and verify the numbers reported on the night of the elections, looking for errors or discrepancies before making the result official.
A victory for less than 0.1 percent of the general vote automatically triggers a count.
“That will be supervised by a judge, and the candidates, their lawyers, some scrutineers and electoral officials will be present,” said Holly Ann Garnett, professor of Political Science at Queen University.
“They will go through all the tickets, tell them and make sure that the election night count is maintained.”
During the count, the judge can govern whether to maintain or reject the tickets that were disputed because they were considered spoiled or unclear.
“They will go through all the tickets so that everyone has a second glance,” Garnett said.
The courts could force the selection of the by, the expert says
But Ara Karaboghossian, Professor of Political Science at Vanier College, says that there is the possibility that this saga is not over. He said the elections could be disputed through the challenged election process of Canada’s elections. He said that irregularities can be the basis to dispute a decision.
“He says that if there is any type of irregularity that has an effect on the result, then the person can compete,” Karaboghossian said. “The voter can compete. A candidate can compete. He is open to anyone.”
The case will depend on what an irregularity is, but it seems that Karaboghossian is an erroneous error in an envelope with its direction and print could fall into that category.
“For me, that consists of an irregularity,” Karaboghossian said. “But the second step is to determine if that irregularity affected the result.”
An irregularity that does not affect the result would be ruled out. However, in this case, a vote would have made the difference in Terrebonne. Bossé would still need to take the elections to Canada to the courts, and then it will be a legal decision, he explained.
“This is the interesting part,” said Karaboghossian. “We are in unknown waters.”
If the court decides that the vote of the Bossé block should be counted: “We should have a paralyzed choice,” he said. “That would be the logic that would apply, but again, this is where unknown waters enter.”
