OTTAWA — Elections Canada watched as social media posts from Canadians began wondering if the last federal election had been rigged by dubious voting machines.
The tweets were linked to the U.S. election and unverified claims from President Donald Trump and his allies that automatic vote tabulators were to blame for his loss to Joe Biden.
On Nov. 16, the agency tweeted how it only uses paper ballots counted by hand in a bid to educate Canadians.
On Nov. 17, Trump turned the tweet upside down by pointing to it as proof of the conspiracy against him.
“This is unfortunate and not at all intended,” chief electoral officer Stephane Perrault wrote in response to one email with a link to Trump’s tweet.
The email is among just over three dozen pages of documents about the social media posts obtained by The Canadian Press under the access-to-information law.
Many parts of the documents have been blacked out with officials citing them as sensitive advice to senior officials, or removing names for privacy reasons.
From what is available, it appears that the genesis for the tweet began on Nov. 9 with discussions taking place in the days after about how to respond to concerns about voting machines used in the U.S. presidential election.
Elections Canada officials noted that many Canadian social media users had been claiming that machines created by Dominion Voting Systems, used in the American election, had also been used here. One document notes some believed “the results of the last election illegitimate.”
“Users taking part in those discussions will point out the fact that machines were either used or could potentially be used to count the votes, adding to the already corrupt system and leading to rigged results,” reads one document.
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The Federal Public Service is rabidly pro-Trudeau. For that reason alone I do not trust Elections Canada. But knowing now that Dominion Voting has it hands in any Canadian election process makes me trust Election Canada even less (if that is possible).