Vachon, won by 3 votes: the closest races of 2026

Vachon: from 10 votes to 3

In the official count of October 8, Liberal Affine Lwalalika led PQ candidate Stephan Fogaing by 10 votes, out of more than 37,000 ballots. Quebec’s Election Act allows a judicial recount to be requested when the gap is less than one-thousandth of the votes cast, which was 37 votes in Vachon. Mr. Fogaing requested one; the Court of Québec granted it on October 13, and the recount was held from October 19 to 21 at the Longueuil courthouse.[1]

Both candidates lost votes in the recount, but not equally: 30 for Mr. Fogaing, 43 for Ms. Lwalalika. The number of rejected ballots rose from 588 to 730.[1] That evening, the Liberal Party said it was not conceding and that its lawyers were reviewing the options available.[3]

With this seat, the Parti Québécois goes from 59 to 60 members.

Champlain: a second recount, no surprise

In Champlain, Conservative Adriana Szalontai had won by 191 votes over PQ candidate René Branchaud. With a gap that size, a recount was not automatic: Mr. Branchaud pointed to arithmetic errors on some count sheets, and on October 20 the Court of Québec agreed to recount the ballot boxes in question.[4]

On October 22, at the Trois-Rivières courthouse, 67 of the 191 ballot boxes were recounted. Mr. Branchaud then dropped his request, and the parties accepted the results of the other 124 boxes. Ms. Szalontai remains elected, with a 186-vote lead instead of 191 (12,690 votes to 12,504).[4] Unlike Vachon, the recount did not change the winner: the Conservatives keep their 19 members.

Such reversals remain rare. Since 2000, Quebec has had nine judicial recounts, two of them this year. Before Vachon, the last one to change the winner was in Gaspé, in 2018.[4]

The ten closest races

After Vachon and Champlain, five more ridings were decided by fewer than 500 votes:

• Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne: Benoit Clermont (PLQ) beat Guillaume Cliche-Rivard (QS) by 275 votes. The gap moved a lot during the count: 109 votes on the evening of October 5, 39 early on October 6, then 275 in the final count of October 8.[2]
• Maurice-Richard: Nada Boumeftah (PLQ) won by 309 votes over Anne Latendresse (QS).
• Montarville: Mathieu Lavoie (PLQ) beat Jean-François Cloutier (PQ) by 336 votes.
• Drummond–Bois-Francs: Charles Page (PQ) won by 466 votes over Myriam Cournoyer (PCQ).
• Trois-Rivières: Jean Pellerin (PQ) beat Christine Fréchette, CAQ leader and outgoing premier, by 499 votes.

Next come Sherbrooke (532 votes, QS), Papineau (556, PQ) and La Prairie (651, PLQ). In all, sixteen ridings were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes.[2]

What the projection expected

Our final projection of October 4 named the right winner in eight of these ten ridings, Champlain included. It missed Vachon, where it had the PLQ ahead with a 51% chance, and Montarville, where it gave the PQ an 86% chance.

More importantly, it described most of these races as open: in five of the ten, the favourite had no more than a 51% chance of winning. A race projected as close that ends up close is good news for a model, even when it picks the wrong winner. Each riding’s page has the details, for example Vachon, Trois-Rivières or Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne.

Why every vote really counts

Three votes out of 37,000 ballots is fewer than one voter in 12,000. A few spoiled ballots, a few neighbours who stayed home: any of these small events could have changed who represents Vachon, and given the Liberals a 40th seat instead of the PQ a 60th.

In an Assembly where the government is a minority, one seat more or less matters a great deal. We explain why in Minority government: who could bring down the PQ?