Misleading fraud claims threaten trust in Canada’s election

Elections Canada signage is pictured near an advance polling station in Ottawa, on Friday, April 18, 2025. Advance polls opened Friday for voters to cast their ballot in the federal election ahead of the April 28 official election day. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

Montreal — With Canada’s April 28 election predicted to be a tight race between Mark Carney’s Liberals and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, unproven claims of vote fraud or manipulation continue to surface on social media.

The Canadian Digital Media Research Network found high levels of trust in the electoral process, but flagged an increase in posts questioning the integrity of the election called amid dramatic shifts in sentiment toward the parties.

While claims about faulty voting technology persist in many elections around the world, these can be easily dismissed in Canada where no machines are used to record votes, count ballots or tabulate results in federal contests.

On election night, candidates can send representatives to monitor the hand counting and raise concerns about any suspicious behavior.

This paper-based process led to rumors that pencils provided to mark ballots are leaving the door open for citizens’ votes to be erased.

Advance voting saw some poll workers facing harassment for failing to offer a pen, but pencils are mandated by Canadian law. Engagement with the claim spiked even as democracy experts said instances of tampering are rare, with safeguards in place to ensure votes are tallied correctly.

Additionally, the non-partisan Elections Canada agency said: “In federal elections, nothing prevents electors from using their own pen or other writing tool to mark their ballot.”

Another claim recycled misinformation from the 2024 US election, falsely warning any mark on a ballot by a poll worker invalidates it.

In Canada, election workers are trained to write their initials and polling station information on each ballot before it is filled out by the elector to ensure the integrity of the vote.

“It’s all happening in front of you. You get your ballot from the poll workers, you go back and fill it out,” said Holly Ann Garnett, co-director of the Electoral Integrity Project.

ID required

Misinformation is also spreading in French, with posts warning that a voter information card was delivered to a deceased person. However, Garnett said that document -- which tells a person where to go to vote -- does not automatically grant the right to cast a ballot.

“It can confirm your address, but there are other safeguards in the process,” she said, adding that voters still need to provide a second proof of address or photo identification.

Additionally, receiving more than one voter information card does not mean that you can vote more than once. A printer error resulted in some registered electors receiving a duplicate.

Record turnout for advance voting also triggered concerns about poll workers tampering with ballots by taking them off-site.

Elections Canada dismissed this as unfounded since each ballot box is sealed before counting on election day and any irregularities would be reported.

Polling skeptics

The Tories topped public opinion polls in the year leading up to the election, but after former prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned and was replaced by Carney, surveys showed a surge of support for the Liberals.

Pointing to relative campaign rally sizes, some Conservative supporters have raised suspicions about whether the polls reflect actual national sentiment or are a ruse to manipulate public opinion.

But even if the results reveal flaws in pre-election polling, Chris Tenove, assistant director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia, said Canada has a tradition of accepting vote outcomes.

He nevertheless remains concerned about repeated exposure to misleading claims.

“When people keep getting different stories -- even if an individual story is disproven -- they might still cling to the broader narrative that if my party loses, the election was stolen,” he said.

Trust in democratic processes is also bolstered, Tenove said, when there is a public sentiment that fairly elected governments follow through on promises to citizens.

“And that needs to be proven over and over again.”

Gwen Roley