The Bloc Québécois wants the courts to trigger a new election in Terrebonne
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Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet announced Thursday that his party would challenge the result 'on the basis of a vote that was not taken into account, which constitutes an irregularity' in the electoral process. The challenge is not based on the judicial recount that took place.
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'The judge said that we lost by one vote; the vote that would have created a tie appeared in the hand of a citizen. There is therefore a difficult-to-contest irregularity that, according to the law, requires that the election be rerun,' Blanchet told reporters on Parliament hill.
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Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste was declared the winner following a judicial recount on May 10, bringing the number of seats won by the Liberal Party of Canada to 170, two shy of a majority. The incumbent, Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair Desgagné, previously thought she had won the riding by dozens of votes.
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However, a Terrebonne voter came forward a few days after the results were confirmed, claiming she had voted for the Bloc Québécois by mail, but that her ballot had never been cast.
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This vote would have placed the Liberals and the Bloc in a tie, potentially leading to a byelection to determine the winner.
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Emmanuelle Bossé stated in several media interviews that her special ballot was returned to her by Canada Post a few days after the April 28 election.
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Elections Canada does not have the authority to order a rerun of the election, but admitted the error raised by Ms. Bossé.
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According to Elections Canada, the error was in the last three characters of the postal code of the office's address, although, it declared the results final.
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'To date, only one case has come to our attention where an envelope containing a marked ballot was returned to a voter because of an incorrect address,' said Matthew Mckenna, a spokesperson for Elections Canada.
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In an email exchange with National Post, McKenna also said the local office issued 115 special ballots for local voting by mail, and that according to their database, five ballots were received late at the local office and that the return envelope contained an error in the postal code.
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'There is no information as to whether the delay was due to the incorrect postal code. We note that voters signed the declaration late in the election period,' McKenna said.
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Meanwhile, 85 of these ballots were returned on time and counted, 16 ballots, including Bossé's, were not returned to the local office and 9 other electors gave up voting by mail and voted in person in the electoral district.
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Sinclair Desgagné told reporters on Thursday that this whole experience has been a 'roller coaster' emotionally but that it's also an 'issue that goes beyond the outcome of a single party.'
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