QUEBEC CITY – Liberal leader Jean Charest on Monday said he had no knowledge of voting irregularities in his own riding of Sherbrooke, including that a dead woman apparently voted in an advance poll.

“No,” Charest said when asked about the reports of irregularities obtained by The Gazette. “And I would be extremely prudent about information pulled out of a hat 24 hours before the vote. I’d be extremely cautious about that.”

Jacques Codère, the returning officer in Sherbrooke riding, confirmed that a woman claiming to be Marie-Josée Carrier, 41, who died Aug. 14, voted in an advance poll.

“She (Carrier) voted, it seems, after she passed away,” Codère said. “But, apparently, she had her purse stolen and someone may have used her identification papers.”

He said voters can be allowed to vote without photo ID if they can show other documents, even without a photo, that prove the person lives at the address on the electors’ list, such as a Hydro-Quebec bill.

Bertrand Quirion, who died June 18, 2012, at age 76, is also listed as having voted in advance polls. But Codère said a man with the same name voted and, probably due to a clerical error, the deceased man’s name was listed as checked as if he had voted, he explained.

Codère’s office received the information about the two deceased “voters” a few days ago, he said.

As for other claims of voter fraud provided early Monday to The Gazette by Sébastien Aubé, campaign director for Sherbrooke Parti Québécois candidate Serge Cardin, Codère said “there isn’t time to look into all of these before (Tuesday’s) election. We have other things to do, other priorities.”

The claims may amount to a handful of votes, but there is no exact number, Codère said.

The claims include instances of voters voting twice, people voting using non-existant electors’ numbers and people voting who have been removed from the electors’ list. Aubé said this is part of pattern of irregularities in Sherbrooke that raise doubts about the electoral process in the riding.

As for the two men with the same name, Aubé asked how the living elector could end up with the elector’s number assigned to the deceased man.

“Aubé says a lot of things and talks about things he doesn’t know much about,” Codère said, adding that he has been an “absolutely impartial” returning officer in Sherbrooke riding for 25 years.

“We will look into all these claims in the coming days, after the election.”

This is not the first time the Charest and Cardin campaigns have been confronted with some odd incidents. Last week, Cardin’s wife, Mariette Fugère, posted a cartoon on her Facebook page that depicts Charest about to be guillotined in a ballot box. Aubé said Fugère removed the image “within five minutes” after she realized it was in poor taste.

Charest is behind Cardin by six percentage points in opinion polls in the riding, according to tooclosetocall.ca.

mharrold@montrealgazette.com

Twiiter: @maxharrold