Pierre Poilievre's riding of Carlton had an astonishing 91 candidates on the ballot. I think that's a record. Obviously, there's some funny business going on. Most of those 91 candidates are independents or have no affiliation. Many of these people are protesting about our voting system. And I understand, there are frustrations with our voting system. But, targeting only one candidate (they claim that they couldn't get people in Carney's riding because he didn't announce it until it was too late) is problematic. Plus, I don't think it will do what they want it to do. It just annoyed and frustrated voters. Did it make a difference in the riding though? Well, when you look at the numbers on elections.ca, it seems like it did. When you count the votes for independents, they come out to around 922 votes. If you add that to Poilievre's existing vote count you get 40,507 which is still short of the Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy's 43,900.
So, it is hard to say if it would have changed the outcome of the election. Maybe those 922 voters were confused. Maybe many couldn't care less about who one. Maybe they wouldn't have voted for the Liberals or Conservatives anyhow. Either way, this "voting protest" seems like a terrible way to do things.
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