Elections Canada Investigating After Postal Code Error Led to Missed Ballot in Riding Liberals Won by 1 Vote

Elections Canada signage is pictured near an advance polling station in Ottawa on April 18, 2025. The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby

Elections Canada says it is looking into how an incorrect postal code resulted in a mail-in ballot not being counted in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, where the Liberals won by a single vote following a recount.

“We can confirm that there appears to be an error with the return address printed on this elector’s return envelope. Specifically, part of the postal code was wrong,” Elections Canada told The Epoch Times in a statement, adding the agency is still investigating the matter.

Terrebonne resident Emmanuelle Bossé told Radio-Canada that while she mailed in her vote weeks before the April 28 federal election, it was returned to her on May 2. She said Elections Canada put the wrong return address on the envelope.

Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste’s win in the riding brought the Liberals’ seat count up to 170, which is two short of a majority government.

While Auguste had initially been declared the winner in Terrebonne on April 28 by 35 votes, the vote tabulation later determined on May 1 that Bloc Québécois MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné had won re-election, beating Auguste by 144 votes.

Elections Canada announced on May 7 that a judicial recount would be held for Terrebonne. Judicial recounts must happen in cases where the difference in votes for two candidates is less than 1/1,000 of the votes cast, or where a judge has “credible affidavit evidence” that there was an error in the counting of votes.

Following the recount, it was announced on May 10 that Auguste had won the riding by a single vote.

In a follow-up statement to The Epoch Times, Elections Canada said their analysis had shown “this was an isolated incident.” Elections Canada said in the future, they would be doing a more “comprehensive” review of their special ballot voting system to ensure “issues like these don’t happen again.”

In a post on social media on May 10, Auguste thanked the voters of Terrebonne and her campaign volunteers for her victory.

“I want to give special recognition to Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, who also went through this historic electoral campaign, as well as to the other candidates,” she said.

Sinclair-Desgagné, who had served as a Bloc MP for the riding of Terrebonne since 2021, said in a May 12 social media post that the judicial recount had caused a “dramatic and unexpected turnover,” and that she was assessing “all the options that lie ahead.”

Auguste won a total of 23,352 votes in the riding, Sinclair-Desgagné won 23,351 votes, and Conservative candidate Adrienne Charles won 10,961 votes.

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet on April 29 called for a “partisan truce” with other federal party leaders following the election, and said Canadians want stability in Parliament to address the ongoing trade war with the United States.