MONTREAL—The elections office in Quebec is throwing cold water on a theory put forward by the Parti Québecois on Sunday that students from elsewhere in Canada could be trying to steal the April 9 provincial election.

The PQ expressed concern about media reports that an influx of English-speakers and other non-francophones from outside the province were trying to vote in the April 7 election.

By late afternoon, however, the province’s chief electoral officer brought forward numbers showing there were no signs of an irregular increase in voter registration.

“The abnormally high number of requests doesn’t exist,” said spokesman Denis Dion.

Still, the strong language used by the PQ meant the controversy dominated Day 19 of the campaign. One PQ candidate at the news conference, Justice Minister Bertrand St-Arnaud, called on the province’s chief electoral officer to closely examine new attempts to register to vote.

“We don’t want this election stolen by people from Ontario and the rest of Canada,” St-Arnaud said in Montreal.

Another party candidate, former student leader Leo Bureau-Blouin, added he wants to make sure the election is decided by Quebecers.

“We are concerned by the fact that many, many people who are not registered on the list want to be registered,” said Bureau-Blouin, who in the past has made increasing voter participation among youth a priority.

PQ Leader Pauline Marois raised her own concerns later in the day.

There have been numerous media reports lately of English-speaking university students trying to register to vote. Some students complained they were turned away even though they believed they had the necessary documentation.

While Quebec’s English-language media has generally focused on those cases, French-language counterparts have sometimes presented the issue differently: as an effort by students from outside Quebec to influence the outcome of the election.

The PQ’s St-Arnaud said he found a report in Sunday’s Le Journal de Montréal particularly troubling. It described an attempt by “hundreds of Ontario students” to vote against Marois.

Quebecor, the parent company of Le Journal de Montréal, was founded by the family of Pierre Karl Peladeau, a star candidate who is running for the PQ in the election.

Peladeau stepped aside as Quebecor’s CEO last year. Earlier this month, when he announced his candidacy, he said he would place his ownership stake in the company in a blind trust and insisted his media outlets would maintain independent coverage.

The story from Le Journal de Montréal story came after Mathieu Vandal, the head of the election revision board for a downtown Montreal riding, resigned Friday and went public with concerns that an increased number of non-francophones were attempting to register and weren’t being adequately screened.

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Dion said there had been an increase in attempts by out-of-province students to register in some ridings, but that Vandal’s comments were “alarmist” and had “exaggerated” the situation.

He said the issue was further complicated because some officials didn’t understand the registration rules. That may be why a number of English-speaking students have come forward to complain they were unfairly denied the right to vote.

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