Something is definitely amiss here in Canada, and we can’t ignore it any longer! A deep dive into our electoral process

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

It took one Tweet from Donald Trump to set North America on fire “States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.”

In that one Tweet, Trump called out the most widely used voting software, Dominion. He claimed that the machines had deleted millions of votes cast for his ticket, and secured Biden the presidency.

What many don’t know is that this controversial machine’s roots began right here, on Toronto’s Spa

dina Avenue. John Poulos and James Hoover founded the Dominion Voting Systems that left the 2000 U.S. presidential election in disarray. Since then Dominion has been at the centre of controversy with claims that the company has skewed results and holds ties to prominent Democrats.

Dominion Voting Systems is one of the largest voting technology companies in the United States. It provides voting machines and tabulators to many local governments. More than 30 states use these voting machines to scan ballots in US elections and tabulate votes.

It has been used in the states with razor-thin margins, and several elected officials have pinned specific glitches in Georgia and Michigan, even though the company has discarded any blame.

The Denver-based company has most recently received flack for its strong political ties, with past donations of $25,000 and $50,000 made to the Clinton Foundation. They assert that they work with all political parties, and their customer base and government outreach practices reflect a nonpartisan approach.

Well, what does this have to do with Canadians?

In the last two elections, there have been allegations of voter tampering, and coercion that have been widely ignored. I haven’t heard anyone in the Caribbean community really show any concern about it, but maybe it is because it is stifled in the news. We need to be concerned because we are most affected by what happens at the top.

From what we have been told by Elections Canada, Canada does not use electronic counters to count ballots. Once the polls close, they count the ballots to find out who won. During this time, the doors of the polling station are locked: no one is allowed to enter or leave until the counting is done.

• First, election officers open the ballot boxes and count the ballots.
• The election officers record the number of votes for each candidate on a Statement of the Vote. They also record the number of rejected ballots.
• The ballots and other election documents are sealed in the ballot box and delivered to the returning officer.

In most cases, a clear winner emerges after the ballots are counted, but sometimes the vote count is very close or even tied. If there is a tie or a close vote, the ballots need to be counted again in a judicial recount.

The thing is, there has been a lot of controversy over the validity of the votes, and most recently a picture was circulated over the internet with our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, testing out a Dominion Voting System. This should worry Canadians because ever since he took office, the Trudeau government has been accused of corruption.

One of the most common concerns was the fear that non-citizens were casting ballots illegally. Elections Canada reported it was removing 103,000 individuals from the federal voters’ registry because they were not Canadian citizens. Under the Canada Elections Act, it’s illegal for a non-citizen to vote knowing they are not eligible.

This is not a conspiracy theory. Ms. Maneet Nagra received a voter card in the mail. All she had to do was head to the polling station with one piece of ID and mark an X. The only issue; she is a permanent resident and therefore isn’t allowed to vote. Nagra maintains she never declared herself a citizen and said she still doesn’t know how she wound up on the list. Thankfully, she was honest, and did not cast her vote.

Another publicized issue is the one surrounding foreign influence. DisinfoWatch did an in-depth report (https://disinfowatch.org/influence-operation-targeting-canadian-2021-federal-election/) on irregularities during the most recent election, “After analyzing available open-source data and consulting with key stakeholders, we believe that the timing and content of narratives indicate the likelihood of a coordinated influence operation targeting Chinese-Canadian voters.” The Conservative Party indicated that 13 electoral districts were affected by Chinese intervention.

Some of the interference was blatant, such as Chinese ambassador to Canada Cong Peiwu warning Canadians not to elect parties that “smear” China. The Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times had an editorial priming a “strong counter strike” if the Conservatives won.

Unfortunately, this was not the only irregularity during the 2021 election. In the 44th Canadian General Election there was a massive increase of mail-in voting: 1,274,447 mail-in ballots were issued for those living in Canada, residents outside of Canada, and members of the Armed Forces. Elections Canada published a report that indicated 205,000 mail-in ballots were not counted, even though they were requested. Some of these ballots were late or not returned, and should not have been counted.

What this does do is help explain why there was a record-low turnout of 17,034,243 voters out of 27,366,297 registered electors. Despite that, the Liberal Party was able to win all of the close races it needed to despite losing the popular vote. The Liberals had a total of 5,556,629 votes while the Conservatives finished with 5,747,410 votes, a difference of 190,781 votes. It seems like all the irregularities favoured Justin Trudeau, and the question Canadians should be asking is why?

The data provided by the DisinfoWatch report raises more questions than the answers provided by Elections Canada. Realistically, the only way to know if there was election fraud is to have a full audit of all the mail-in ballots, practices and foreign interference.

Now let’s bring this full circle. Automatic tabulators aren’t used at the federal level for elections, but ones manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were used in the party leadership race where Justin Trudeau became Liberal leader. A photo of him voting in that 2013 contest became part of the swirl of internet conspiracy speculation about the machines.

Something is definitely amiss here in Canada, and we can’t ignore it any longer. We need to have representation at the government level that cannot be bought, intimidated, or persuaded to anything that is not for the people.