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Many Canadians are heading to the polls in 2015 worried about the potential for the “illegal manipulation” of their votes, and showing as little trust in elections as people in some Latin American countries.

A survey of 26 countries in the Americas found that Canadians’ trust in elections is relatively weak, with only one in five (21 per cent) expressing “strong trust” in elections. An equal proportion (22 per cent) have little or no trust, with 57 per cent in the middle, showing “some” trust.

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But the more startling finding is that nearly 70 per cent are concerned that political parties may try to “manipulate the outcome of future elections through illegal activities.”

Environics Institute and the Ottawa-based Institute on Governance (IOG) teamed up on the Canadian survey for the massive AmericasBarometer Study that is conducted in 26 countries every two years.

About 1,541 Canadians answered that survey online last summer, and the results were recently released. Environics and the IOG also did a companion survey of 2,000 Canadians about their attitudes on governance and the public service, released exclusively to the Citizen. (Margin of error can’t be applied to online surveys but the two samples were each weighted by region, age and gender to match Canada’s population.)