Supporters of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) are three times more likely than others to question the results of the October 3 election, according to recent research. A phenomenon resulting from the growing misinformation on electoral fraud circulating on social networks.
“This is one of the main narratives of disinformation that we observed during the campaign,” notes Mathieu Lavigne, director of the Research Project on Electoral Disinformation in Quebec at McGill University. “The misinformation revolved around all stages of the voting process. The use of pencil to vote, advance voting, postal voting, the way votes are counted, the use of machines to count votes, etc. »
According to studies conducted by his team during the campaign, about 30% of PCQ supporters said they did not trust the integrity of the elections, compared to 10% among other parties. The full results of the exercise are to be published early next year. Additionally, 15% don’t believe Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
The researchers polled 100 voters online each day during the campaign (3,500 people in total). After the poll, they again questioned 1,500 of them, but their answers had not changed much.
The PCQ does not subscribe to the thesis of electoral fraud. “We recognize the result of the election,” replied the To have to party spokesman Cédric Lapointe. “Many are disappointed with the historic electoral distortion suffered by the Conservative Party,” he added, noting that the political party has been particularly disadvantaged by the current voting system.
But on the Facebook page “Let’s support Éric Duhaime”, which has 22,000 members, many Internet users denounced a “rigged election” the day after the election. To the point where the administrator of the page, Jean Alex Martin, intervened to tell them that it was not possible. The debate there was revived on October 21, when a supporter called for an investigation into electoral fraud. Joined by The dutyMr. Martin said that he believed there was “confusion” among people “between the word ‘fraud’ and the word ‘irregularity’”.
Criticized by conspirators
In a recent video, conspiratorial influencer Alexis Cossette-Trudel argues that Éric Duhaime was the victim of “large-scale” “electoral fraud” while criticizing the Conservative leader for not denouncing it. It has been viewed nearly 50,000 times.
Mr. Cossette-Trudel thus maintains that, like the supporters of Donald Trump, the voters of Éric Duhaime were victims of a planned computer error. “They pushed so hard to prevent the PCQ from coming in second among Francophones that we see all sorts of irregularities,” he said. The Foundation for the Defense of the Rights and Freedoms of the People, a conspiratorial organization, circulated a survey to collect testimonies on electoral anomalies.
According to researcher Lavigne, conservative supporters are more likely to buy into these theories for a range of reasons, including because they…lost. “Overall, winners have more confidence in the process and are less likely to believe there is fraud. »
It has also happened in the past to the supporters of other political options to believe in the existence of some fraud, he points out, like the supporters of the Yes in 1995 who thought that the referendum had been stolen in one way or another”.
But in the case of conservative activists, this stronger support may also have been influenced by party rhetoric. “Éric Duhaime repeated several times during the campaign that the PCQ was the party with the most members and that it attracted more people to its campaign events. From the fans’ point of view, we expected a better score. »
The prior perceptions of conservative activists may also play a role in these beliefs. Mr. Lavigne further mentions that they make up a section of the electorate that is “very suspicious of political, media and scientific institutions” at the outset, which can “increase the likelihood of buying into conspiracy theories”.
No problem with the electoral list
The Élections Québec team is formal: there was no computer problem with the electoral list this fall in Québec. And this, at all stages of the process (extraction of the list, revision, sending information to voters, reminder card, etc.).
“We encounter cases of voters who present themselves to vote without having previously checked their registration on the electoral list,” his spokesperson said in writing on Monday.
In the United States, attempts by Donald Trump’s clan to blame his defeat in 2020 on vast electoral fraud have never passed the test of facts. But the idea remains very popular in the Republican ranks, where more than 370 candidates in the midterm legislative elections say they are followers of the “big lie”.
In Quebec, the impact of this discourse remained on the whole “very minority” and “camped in the conspiratorial sphere”, notes Olivier Morin, co-holder of the UNESCO Chair in the prevention of violent radicalization and extremism (UNESCO -PREV). However, it will be necessary to monitor what will happen in the next elections, according to him. “Mr. Duhaime immediately indicated that he would recognize the results, he does absolutely no mileage on it. But what would have happened if…? he asks himself.
“How far will this discourse, which is currently confined to alternative media and the ‘complosphere’, go? […] What if a leader who makes 12, 13, 15% did the same? That’s the question. »