In the 2025 Canadian federal election, the Liberal Party won the riding of Terrebonne by a single vote, with Bloc Québécois as the runner-up. However, a clerical error returned a mail-in ballot to a Bloc Québecois voter. This administrative fault, framed by judicial bodies as a mere unintentional mistake, has the potential to not only obstruct the accuracy and fairness of the Terrebonne race, but sets a precedent that minimizes the cruciality of honest elections.
Since this vote could have altered the outcome of the election, Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné argued that the result should be annulled, positing that not counting a vote constitutes a violation of that voter’s Charter rights. The judge ruled against her, stating that there was no malicious intent and that there was therefore no obstruction of election integrity.
Allowing this result to stand is not merely unjust but undemocratic, and could set a dangerous precedent that allows improper elections to be validated. Flaws in our electoral system are inevitable, but rather than neglecting those mistakes, Elections Canada should be doing everything in its power to make sure that when those inevitable incidents occur, they do not affect electoral outcomes.
In an era where online conspiracies around elections are widespread, it is imperative that Elections Canada remains a neutral and effective electoral body. Claims of fraudulent elections have grown increasingly common around the world in the past few years. Infamously, right-wing insurgents stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election—which rioters claimed was rigged. Then, in 2023, an almost identical insurrection took place in Brazil, clearly demonstrating the damage incited by a mistrust in the electoral process.
Democratic elections are supposed to be both free and fair. A free election is one where all voters can vote for the candidate of their choice. A fair election is one where all votes are counted equally. Hungary’s elections are free but not fair. Turkey’s elections are fair but not free. Elections in the Jim Crow South were neither fair nor free. The 2025 Canadian Federal Election was free—there was no voter coercion towards any party. Yet because a vote was not counted, this election was not fair.
Elections Canada has a track record of miscounts and errors, one they must compensate for with thoughtful, targeted solutions to clerical errors like those within the Terrebonne election. In the October 2024 elections in British Columbia, Elections BC forgot to count an entire extra box of ballots, leading to conspiracy theories that the BC New Democratic Party fabricated election results in the extremely close election.
In the 2025 federal election, Elections Canada closed several remote polling sites in northern communities due to inclement weather, preventing people from voting as there were no other polling stations nearby. While Elections Canada offers a weather contingency plan on its website, it must also invest in sufficient infrastructure to support voting in all remote communities.
With Canadian electoral mistrust and political polarization on the rise, it is Elections Canada’s responsibility to prove to the Canadian people why it deserves to be in charge of one of the most important functions of our democracy—elections. Determining the extent of an election’s error should not be a question of intent or malice, but a question of fairness.
By neglecting Sinclair-Desgagné’s deciding vote, the ruling judge is sending the message to Terrebonne that unfair elections and undemocratic outcomes are acceptable as long as those outcomes were unintended. Failing to penalize—and be proactive about preventing—anti-democratic election activity on the basis of subjective perceptions of intent is a deeply flawed principle. The law does not carve out exceptions for good intentions; Canada’s democracy should not be any different.
