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Canada's Conservatives Misled Voters With Massive Robocall Operation
choongiri writes "Elections Canada has just traced thousands of illegal phone calls made during the 2011 federal election to a company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country. The automated VOIP 'robocalls' appeared to be designed to stop non-Conservative voters from casting ballots in key ridings by falsely telling voters that the location of their polling stations had changed, causing them to go to the wrong location on election day. This news casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of Canada's Government. The Conservatives narrowly won their 'majority' by 6,201 votes in 14 ridings, with only 39% of the popular vote." For those as unfamiliar with the term "riding" in this context as I was, here's Wikipedia's explanation.
wtf?
surely some jailtime is in order? shouldn't be _that_ hard to figure out where the calls originated from(someone paid for them in some form.. even if they were done with skype-out or whatever).
sincerely some guy.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
They also made significant changes to the election system and advertised it poorly, several years ago. You Americans in the audience might be familiar with this sort of tactic: requiring forms of identification that younger and poorer voters were less likely to have, in the name of combating electoral fraud. I worked the polls that year and it was a real goddamn treat explaining to people from all walks of life that they couldn't vote because they didn't bring the right ID. Some came back later. Some didn't. The whole thing was an awful bottleneck.
There's a big difference between a minority and a majority government. And who's to say what the effect was? There was large scale elections fraud by the party that won the election, thus, their right to govern is in question. Even if no ridings were swayed, whoever was involved violated the elections act and, if they were elected, are in office illegally.
Illegal methods can undermine the legitimacy of a government even if they weren't ultimately responsible for winning the election. Just ask Richard Nixon.
hahahahaha.
Like what happened in the states, like in Florida, where dead people just happen pop out of the grave and vote, or where primarily Democrat-voting districts just happen to get robocalled with the wrong date, time and/or location to vote [or that you need a passport and multiple other forms of picture ID to vote].
As long as the entire voting process, as well as the government in general, is under the direct control of the political parties that are permitted to run, every so-called 'investigation' will continue to result in...nothing happening.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The problem is not that these things are legal - they aren't - it's that the risk/reward ratio is wrong. If you cheat and win, then you get to run the country. If you get caught, you get a slap on the wrist.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There wouldn't be any evidence. There seldom is if the perps are competent, and if the evidence trail pointed upwards some flunky would fall on his sword to protect the Big Boss. This has been done many times before, and will again.
Just saying.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem