Elections Canada says Terrebonne, Que., result is final despite mailing error

Elections Canada says the result of a recount in the federal riding of Terrebonne is final, despite a misprint that led to one special ballot being returned to sender.

Elections Canada says there was an error on the envelope used to mail a special ballot from Terrebonne, a Quebec riding the Liberals won by a single vote after a recount.

Preliminary results indicated that the Liberals had won the riding, but the seat flipped temporarily to the Bloc Québécois after the results were validated.

After a recount that gave the seat back to the Liberals, however, CBC News reported that a Bloc voter saw her mail-in ballot returned to her.

The agency says an analysis confirmed that part of the return address on the envelope destined for a local Elections Canada office — the last three characters of the postal code — was incorrect.

Despite the error and questions about the possibility of another recount or a byelection, Elections Canada spokesperson Matthew McKenna said "the result of the recount is final."

"The Canada Elections Act does not explicitly provide for the appeal of a judicial recount and Elections Canada is unaware of any appeals brought to a court following a recount," said McKenna.

Elections Canada said that this is the only case they know of in the recent election of an envelope containing a marked ballot being returned to a voter because of an incorrect address.

McKenna said the returned vote was never part of the recount.

"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."