Potential duplicate voting prompts investigation

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This article was published 15/04/2016 (3488 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Elections Manitoba is investigating reports of two incidents in which people may already have voted twice.

“We are aware of two potential occurrences of duplicate voting. We are currently reviewing them,” said Alison Mitchell, manager of communications and public information for Elections Manitoba. “If we find that an offence has occurred, we will forward the matter to the commissioner.”

Mitchell said Friday that voting twice is subject to a fine up to $10,000, to a jail term up to one year, or both. There have been no convictions in recent memory, and there were no allegations of anyone’s voting more than once in the 2011 provincial election, she said.

The campaign team for Maples Liberal candidate Harbans Singh Brar says it has evidence of double voting by a person they say is a former candidate who is active in this election campaign.

Brar’s campaign team said in a news release that the person’s “name and address appeared on two different lists — Elections Manitoba’s advance voting list of resident voters, and again on the non-resident voter report in the Maples, indicating that he attempted to vote twice.”

Mitchell said that Elections Manitoba is not commenting on the identity of the voters under investigation.

Mitchell said that a name’s appearing on both lists does not necessarily mean that the person has already voted twice. “That’s what we’re reviewing,” she said.

Mitchell said that it could be a clerical error, or two voters with identical or similar names could live at the same address.

Mitchell said that the two documents or lists to which the Brar release refers are provided to candidates following every day of advance voting.

“I immigrated to Canada in 1972 for a better life, and the foundation of that better life in Canada is our democratic system of government,” said Brar. “I have ignored sign vandalism, but this I cannot ignore. It is important to stand up and shine a light on this abuse of democracy. Voters have a right to know this has happened.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Nick Martin

Former Free Press reporter Nick Martin, who wrote the monthly suspense column in the books section and was prolific in his standalone reviews of mystery/thriller novels, died Oct. 15 at age 77 while on holiday in Edinburgh, Scotland.