Canada: A tie in Saint-Jean! (1994)

Posted by Paul, 2017-02-28

The 1994 election in the provincial riding of Saint-Jean led to a rare tie, unusual for a contest with so many voters.

Despite 38,894 turning out on election day, voters could not decide between the two leading candidates Michel Charbonneau of Quebec's Liberal Party and Roger Paquin of the Parti Québécois, each receiving exactly 16,536 votes.

By law in Quebec, the contest had to be re-run, with Paquin winning by 532 votes a few weeks later.

Canadian provincial governments have a few ways of dealing with ties: re-running the vote, as in this example, having the returning officer for the riding cast the deciding vote (which undoubtedly puts them under quite a lot of pressure) and some sort random method for selecting the ultimate winner. For instance, Prince Edward Island has a simple coin toss, and the Yukon Territory gets to have fun with a drawing of lots.

Nova Scotia, not to be outdone, details the process for breaking of the tie (which is done by a draw) to an alarming level of detail, including notes on the size and colour of the paper to be used, the placement of the paper into a box, the securing of the lid of the box, the shaking of the box, the opening of the box, the selection of the piece of paper from the box and the unfolding of the paper drawn from the box.

If you want to read more, I'd recommend reading Tristan Hopper's 2015 piece on a tie that took place in Prince Edward Island.