Elections N.L. says candidate attempted to 'intercept' ballots at post office

Elections N.L. says a political candidate in Humber–Bay of Islands attempted to intercept special ballot kits at a post office during the last provincial election.

The allegations from Elections N.L. appear in two sentences the 374-page general election report released last November.

"Elections NL is also aware of an instance of one candidate attempting to intercept Special Ballot kits at a Canada Post outlet in one community. Canada Post alerted Elections N.L. of the candidate's activities and corrective action was taken at the outlet to prevent further interference by the candidate," reads a section of the report labelled "Political Involvement with Special Ballot Process."

Elections NL won't identify the candidate in question. In an email, spokesperson Rexanne Eddy said "no ballots were actually intercepted" and there were no consequences for the candidate. Police were not called, she said.

"Canada Post followed their processes for the delivery of mail which would not permit the mail to be given to anyone other than the addressee," Eddy wrote. 

All three candidates in the district deny knowing anything about the "interference" alleged to have occurred March 4, as a problem-plagued campaign forced thousands of people across the province to vote by mail. 

In fact, Independent MHA Eddie Joyce, Liberal candidate Stelman Flynn and PC candidate Robert Marche said that they had no knowledge of the allegations until CBC News contacted them last Thursday.

"This is the first time I ever heard of anything like this. We were never notified of any incident whatsoever, never even notified," Joyce said in a phone interview.

When CBC News subsequently asked Elections N.L. to clarify the allegations, we were told to file an access to information request. Chief electoral officer Bruce Chaulk declined an interview, as did Canada Post spokesperson Philipe Legault.

Joyce said his campaign staff spoke to a Canada Post employee on March 4, but only because the postmaster wanted to flag the dozens of wrongly addressed special ballot kits arriving at their post office.

"Canada Post notified us and said, 'Look, we got ballots that are being returned from the north shore of the Bay of Islands and the reason why they were being returned is because the wrong address was put on by Elections N.L.,'" Joyce said.

Emails between Joyce's constituency assistant, Judy Bolt, and Elections N.L. show she informed the agency on March 4 that a number of special ballot kits had been sent to the wrong address.

"I just received a call from a constituent who also works at the post office advising that 34 Ballot kits have been returned to Canada Post because Elections Canada or your office, whoever is looking after this, has put the voters' old addresses on the ballot kits," Bolt wrote to Chaulk.

"Instead of their civic addresses, for some reason, staff used [voters'] old P.O. box numbers which haven't been used for at least five years. These people will not get their ballots as it is in the return to sender bin at Canada Post. This has to be addressed by your office ASAP and arrangements have to be made with Canada Post for pickup."