Misleading claims about voting in pencil resurface in Canada

"Use a pen. Bring your own," said Mario Zelaya, a top Canadian content creator who regularly comments on politics across platforms under the handle "@mario4thenorth."

Zelaya's April 14, 2025 Instagram post warning against using the pencil provided at voting centers received more than 12,000 likes, while a post on X of the same video received thousands more interactions.

Image

Screenshot of an Instagram post taken April 15, 2025

His sentiments were echoed in Facebook posts, some of which went further with their warnings.

"Liberals, wanna change your vote without you knowing bring a pen or a sharpie," says one such April 14 post.

Canadians head to the polls April 28 to vote in a snap federal election called just days after Mark Carney was sworn in as prime minster. Advance polling begins April 18 (archived here).

The Canada Elections Act requires polling stations to have "a suitable black lead pencil for the use of electors in marking their ballots" (archived here).

But pens are also allowed, Elections Canada, the nonpartisan agency that administers federal elections, told AFP.

"In federal elections, nothing prevents electors from using their own pen or other writing tool to mark their ballot," the agency said in an April 16 email.

The agency made this clear in a video posted to its YouTube channel (archived here).

The narrative that votes marked in pencil are vulnerable to tampering also spread during the 2021 federal election cycle.

There is no evidence that this voting method has led to fraudulent results, however.

"It doesn't matter what you're marking your ballot with" so long as it can be clearly read, said Holly Ann Garnett, professor of leadership at the Royal Military College of Canada (archived here). 

She said the law requires that pencils are provided for "practical, logistical" reasons. They do not run out of ink, and they can easily be stored for long periods between elections. 

Chain of custody

Garnett, who is also co-director of the nonprofit Electoral Integrity Project, said federal elections are administered differently than some provincial elections.

"One thing that people might not be aware of is that no technology is being used to cast or count ballots," Garnett told AFP on April 16.

She said she has confidence ballots in Canada are not being changed because of strict custody rules, with poll workers assigned tasks in pairs so they are not alone with voting materials.

"There really isn't an opportunity -- whether on election day or advanced polling -- to go and start erasing ballots," she said, pointing out that completed ballots are placed in sealed boxes. 

Elections Canada added: "Once the marked, folded ballot is placed in the ballot box, it stays there until ballots are counted on election night."

Paid election workers count ballots by hand, opening and showing each ballot to witnesses who are typically representatives of the candidates (archived here).

"Each ballot is unfolded one at a time and shown to everyone present. There are no opportunities for workers to smudge or alter the mark placed by the elector," Elections Canada said in its email.

Any irregularities can be referred to the Commissioner of Canada Elections for potential investigation, with legal penalties including fines or jail time imposed on individuals found to have broken election law. 

AFP reviewed the charges laid and undertakings accepted since the 2019 election and did not find anyone brought up for tampering with ballots (archived here and here). 

Find more of AFP's reporting on misinformation impacting the 2025 federal election here.