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Trump points to Elections Canada tweet to bolster baseless claims of voter fraud
Rachel Aiello
CTVNews.ca Online Politics Producer
@rachaiello Contact
Published Tuesday, November 17, 2020 5:14PM EST Last Updated Tuesday, November 17, 2020 7:50PM EST
OTTAWA – Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump is pointing to Canada’s voting process in an attempt to bolster what remain baseless claims from him and the Republican party of voter fraud in the U.S. presidential election.
“THIS SAYS IT ALL!” Trump tweeted, sharing a post from Elections Canada, the national independent agency that administers federal elections, explaining our domestic voting processes.
“Elections Canada does not use Dominion Voting Systems. We use paper ballots counted by hand in front of scrutineers and have never used voting machines or electronic tabulators to count votes in our 100-year history,” read the tweet.
Trump has targeted Dominion Voting Systems in recent days as his campaign continues to wage legal challenges and call into question the integrity of the Nov. 3 election that saw record numbers of Americans cast a ballot.
While Elections Canada does not use this company,it has been used to tabulate results in some provincial elections,which are not in the agency’s jurisdiction.
In the run-up to, and since the U.S. election, Canada's elections agency has sought to respond to accounts posing questions about the integrity and process of federal elections.
In an emailed statement to CTVNews.ca, Elections Canada spokesperson Natasha Gauthier said: "Our message on Twitter was intended to respond to the large number of questions we had received from people who mistakenly believed we use automated tabulating systems in federal elections. It shouldn't be construed as anything other than that."
TOP KEK
'This is unfortunate': Inside Elections Canada after Trump's tweet on voting machines
Jordan Press
The Canadian Press
Staff
Contact
Published Sunday, January 3, 2021 7:24AM EST Last Updated Sunday, January 3, 2021 1:34PM EST
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.