Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
Really? If? Why were there no if' in the Layton v. Sun media thread?
LOL...
You ideologues are so entertaining.
Your point?
They are the center of the controversy. They also had the CPC's lists on their servers.
Was R9 the prime contractor - From what I understand it was not - it was for a number of ridings but from what i have read not the lead contractor for the CPC.
The riding in question is Guelph. That is the one and only that is continuously mentioned in reports.
A riding would not have access to the complete CPC data base. No how, no way. That info is heavily protected.
Racknine is the company at the center of the controversy. Guelph seems to be the epicenter.
The rest of your posts, is pure speculation.
The CPC would not provide Guelph with unlimited access to the main data base. That would be fact.
That would be speculation actually. Not that it would have to give the riding campaign workers full access.
Since it's centered in Guelph. It would be prudent to offer Guelph campaigners, the data for Guelph.
Non?
For that riding and that info would be held close to the chest, or should be. To have access to other ridings, no.
So far, Guelph is the only riding under scrutiny.
The rest of the claims are yet to be proven factual.
So far. I still believe a Royal Commission would enlighten the Canadian Public as to tactics that while that may not be illegal do skirt the line of what we as a Canadian consider repugnant. If we want to end up with US style elections then have no Commission. If we want to rein in, legislate what is and what is illegal, then a RC is required.
If this goes all the way to the PMO, I'll drive the bus to the lynching.
But until the FACTS are on the table, or EC or the RCMP drops the ball, I' wait before I get all fired up.
More non-news for this non-scandal. 
Robocalls is too big an operation for just one ‘Poutine’ loving man
It seems another chapter is about to unfold in the ongoing Robocall saga. On Thursday, it was the National Post’s Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher’s turn, as they speculated that the calls may have been set up by a larger group of people. Their report says they have spoken to a source “close to the robocalls probe” who said Sona learned of his involvement from Sun TV, and confirmed that Sona could not have acted alone to set up the complicated scam, currently under the authorship of a mysterious “Pierre Poutine.”
The report comes the day after the Globe and Mail’s Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc reported that Elections Canada is now combing through emails and database records of the Conservative Party. Earlier this week on Tuesday, the 23-year-old former Conservative party staffer, Michael Sona, finally poked his head above the water in a brief statement to CTV where he said to have had “no involvement in the fraudulent calls.” Sona had been keeping a low profile since resigning from his job amid accusations that he had orchestrated a scam to divert voters from polling stations during the 2011 election in the riding of Guelph, while working as campaign staff for Conservative MP Marty Burke.
Robocalls is too big an operation for just one ‘Poutine’ loving man - Macleans.ca
Robocalls is too big an operation for just one ‘Poutine’ loving man
It seems another chapter is about to unfold in the ongoing Robocall saga. On Thursday, it was the National Post’s Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher’s turn, as they speculated that the calls may have been set up by a larger group of people. Their report says they have spoken to a source “close to the robocalls probe” who said Sona learned of his involvement from Sun TV, and confirmed that Sona could not have acted alone to set up the complicated scam, currently under the authorship of a mysterious “Pierre Poutine.”
The report comes the day after the Globe and Mail’s Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc reported that Elections Canada is now combing through emails and database records of the Conservative Party. Earlier this week on Tuesday, the 23-year-old former Conservative party staffer, Michael Sona, finally poked his head above the water in a brief statement to CTV where he said to have had “no involvement in the fraudulent calls.” Sona had been keeping a low profile since resigning from his job amid accusations that he had orchestrated a scam to divert voters from polling stations during the 2011 election in the riding of Guelph, while working as campaign staff for Conservative MP Marty Burke.
Robocalls is too big an operation for just one ‘Poutine’ loving man - Macleans.ca
Let's not muddy the waters here by having some personal, side argument.
Misleading robocalls went to voters ID'd as non-Tories
Pattern of calls points to party's voter identification database
An investigation by CBC News has turned up voters all over Canada who say the reason they got robocalls sending them to fictitious polling stations was that they'd revealed they would not vote Conservative.
Although the Conservative Party has denied any involvement in the calls, these new details suggest that the misleading calls relied on data gathered by, and carefully guarded by, the Conservative Party.
Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand announced Thursday that he now has "over 700 Canadians from across the country" who allege "specific circumstances" of fraudulent or improper calls. CBC News examined 31 ridings where such calls have been reported and found a pattern: those receiving those calls also had previous calls from the Conservative Party to find out which way they would vote.
Tim McCoy of the riding of Ottawa-Vanier was one of those who complained to Elections Canada. He received a bogus recorded message pretending to be from Elections Canada — but he also had two previous calls from the Conservatives.
"They did call me back from the Conservative Association and ask if they could count on my support," said McCoy, who declined to pledge his vote. He thinks that's why someone tried to mislead him.
"It looks like a hijacking of the democratic process," he added. "I would like to know who made the call pretending to be from Elections Canada and I don't really care which way the finger points. I would like to know."
Elections Canada says it never calls voters at all. However, it is only now emerging that calls impersonating Elections Canada followed previous calls by Conservative workers asking which way voters were leaning. That suggests that the "Elections Canada" calls, which are illegal, came from people with access to data gathered by the Conservative Party, which carefully controls access to it.
Asked about that, party spokesman Fred Delorey had no comment and declined an interview.
Election day calls
The pattern of legitimate so-called "Voter ID" calls, followed by bogus "Elections Canada" calls, occurs in ridings across the country.
Charles Cochrane of Saint John, N.B., made it very clear to the Conservatives that they did not have his vote. Then, on election day, he said, "The phone rang and it was a recorded message. This is Elections Canada calling, your polling station has now changed." He checked. It had not changed.
From the outset, the Conservative Party leadership has insisted it had no involvement in these calls.
"The Conservative party can say absolutely, definitively, it has no role in any of this," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, calls claims to the contrary "baseless smears."
However, opposition leaders say the scheme could never have gone forward without callers having access to the Conservatives' proprietary database on voter intentions. Known as "CIMS," the database assigns a "smiley" face to supporters, and a "sad" face to non-Conservatives. Liberal and NDP politicians say it would make no sense to call randomly, since many of the voters misled would be Conservatives.
"Who had access to the database? Who wrote the scripts?" asked the NDP's Charlie Angus in question period Thursday. He did not receive an answer.
Lori Bruce of Fredericton thinks she has a good idea. She said the Conservatives knew she was not a supporter, and called her more than once — even identifying themselves while misdirecting her to the wrong polling station.
Bruce said she received a call stating that it was "on behalf of Stephen Harper and Keith Ashfield for the Conservative party."
"At that point, he told me that my voting location had changed. I, at that point, said no, it's at the same location it always is."
Bruce then Googled the caller's number and found out it was the Conservative campaign office. Still, she wanted to be sure. "I called the number back," she says, "and I just got an answering machine message, saying thank you for calling the Conservative Party."
Peggy Walsh Craig of North Bay, Ont., told a similar story — but received two separate calls.
"The first one was a few weeks before the election and it simply asked me one question and that was, was I going to vote for the Conservative Party — and I indicated no."
Only later did she get an anonymous second call, she said.
'Polling stations have changed'
"That was, it was Elections Canada calling and that they — due to higher than anticipated voter turnout, the polling station had been changed."
Once again, it hadn't changed at all. The same thing happened to Astrid Dimond of Mission, B.C.
Dimond said a caller told her that, "We're just phoning to let you know that the polling stations have changed."
Dimond knew better.
"And I said, no they haven't, and I hung up on her."
Dimond added that she tracked the call back to its source. The misleading call "came from the same number that all the other calls had come from, which I found out was the Conservative Party."
CBC News came up with many voters with similar complaints, including Saj Aziz in the riding of Mississauga-Streetsville, Carmen Leveille in Victoria, Gordon Webb in Guelph, May Beland in Willowdale and Susan Lapell in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's.
Aziz said a "research company" tried to find out who he was voting for as part of an "independent poll." When he declined to commit to the Conservatives, he was told that "a supervisor" would call him back. Then, he got a call from the Conservative party, trying to win him over. When that didn't work, he finally got a call saying that his polling station had moved. However, he'd already voted in the advance poll, at the right place.
In Guelph — where the robo-call scandal began — Gordon Webb says he made it clear to the Conservatives that he would not vote for them. He, too, got a misdirection call telling him to go to a phoney polling station. At least a hundred people showed up there and some of them angrily gave up on voting, blaming Elections Canada.
As for the next step, all of these voters say they want Elections Canada to get to the bottom of it.
"There definitely should be punishment," said Lori Bruce of Fredericton. "They should be punished to the fullest extent of the law."
In North Bay, where the Liberals lost by just 18 votes, Peggy Walsh Craig said, "I care a lot about democracy and so I'm appalled that this is happening."
"It raises enough questions that it makes me wonder about the results here."
Misleading robocalls went to voters ID'd as non-Tories - Politics - CBC News
Investigators strike information ‘gold’ in Elections Canada robocalls probe: source | News | National Post
On March 2, Elections Canada said that it had already received 31,000 submissions. It later stated that the majority of those “contacts” were the result of an online petition calling for a public inquiry.
But some of the information provided to the agency is “gold,” according to a source close to the investigation, and some complainants have reported followup calls from investigators.
At least one other Elections Canada investigator, Tim Charbonneau, has joined former RCMP inspector Al Mathews, who is leading the probe. They have interviewed witnesses beyond Guelph, which suggests they are taking seriously reports of telephone mischief in other communities.
According to a CBC investigation voters who revealed they would not be voting Conservative received robocalls sending them to fake polling stations.
It really seems like the media is just re-packaging what we know already in order to stretch this story out.
Still lots of speculation but no proof. How do we know that those that said they would not vote conservative are not on another party's supporters list and that is where the calls came from?
Reports that many of the complaints are from an on line petition form suggest that someone from another party is just trying to make the cons look bad and the gullible media, ever looking to flog paper is gobbling it up, making a story where none exists.
Reports that many of the complaints are from an on line petition form suggest that someone from another party is just trying to make the cons look bad and the gullible media, ever looking to flog paper is gobbling it up, making a story where none exists.
If they were from another party's supporters list, there would be no reason for that party to mis-direct the voter once they found out they were non-conservative voters. It wouldn't really make much sense.
Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand breaks silence on robo-calls investigation
The chief electoral officer of Elections Canada, Marc Mayrand, finally broke the agency’s silence on Thursday in relation to the ongoing robo-calls investigation. Saying that Elections Canada received 700 specific complaints regarding misleading phone calls voters received in the days preceding the 2011 federal election, Mayrand confirmed the agency also received 31,000 submissions from the public as the result of an online petition calling for a public inquiry into the matter.
While the National Post’s Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor reported that an unnamed source qualified some of the information submitted to Elections Canada as “gold,” the CBC’s Terry Milewski reported on Friday that the public broadcaster checked the 31 ridings reported to have received fraudulent or improper calls and found a pattern that those receiving misleading calls had previously been called by the Conservative Party to find out how they would vote.
The CBC report suggests that the calls impersonating Elections Canada were made by people who had access to the data in the Conservative Party’s tightly controlled database, which the party uses to identify and keep track of voters and which has recently come under the scrutiny of Elections Canada as part of its investigation into the phone calls received by voters in the riding of Guelph, Ont. during the 2011 campaign.
Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand breaks silence on robo-calls investigation - Need to know - Macleans.ca