Slashdot Mirror
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.
Some calls apparently were from people claiming to be with the Liberal party, acting rude, calling at very late/early hours, in an attempt to cause people who said they supported the Liberal party to not vote for them. These calls happened in multitudes of ridings (districts for you yanks) including Etobicoke Centre where the Conservative candidate won by only 26 votes.
They're the Corporate-Regressive party, our own home-grown copy of American neoliberal parties like the GOP. No real Canadian actually thinks they are legitimate.
US voters must pay a $2 E-voting card fee but you can save $1 buying that card at this site (put scam site hear) we take pay pal and all major credit cards.
Don't delay pay now and avoid the $10 on site fee.
Why isn't this in the mainstream news?
Jonathanjk.com
... at least he admits he's evil.
I would, but he doesn't have a local representative.
To tell you the truth, although probably not as bad, some of the conservative government's behaviour remind over a certain 20th century German leader prior to him getting into power and duping his own people - the initials are AH. Maybe I am being a little over-reactive, but some of what Harper is doing disturbs me.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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 hasn't been a government elected by the majority of Canadians since 1949! In fact I remember a government that publicly stated they would abolish a national sales tax and then didn't! That same government lasted for 7 years, through two elections, never getting more than 41% of the vote! Shocking I tell you. Just shocking.
It is a stretch to say that this "casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of Canada's Government'. It is disturbing and not inside baseball.
However, the government needs 154 seats to form a majority in the 308 seat lower house and it has 165, an 11 seat margin. Even if they lost all 14 of these narrowly contested ridings, they would still have had a minority government.
How many were fooled by these calls? Certainly some were, even hundreds might have been. But enough to flip more than one or two seats the other way? I doubt it.
So, some illegal calls are just fine, then. And the media is being biased when they report about them.
I can't believe we have to debate this.
That didn't happen until after the whole brownshirt thing.
Strange though it might seem, he didn't rise to power by killing 6 million jews. That happened once absolute power was in his hands.
Maybe the current world leaders rising to power using similar tactics won't embark on genocide, but that doesn't make what they're doing any less wrong.
Hitler was not the most evil man in history. He was just one of many, many evil men. There were plenty before him, there have been and will be plenty after him.
All i can say is : http://www.fairvote.ca/en/problem
Our fine Conservative party is working as designed, nothing new to report. It's funny the crap that people will put up with - obvious lies about war, torture, electoral fraud - once they've decided one party is 'tough' and well-organized and the other are hapless fools. As Hunter Thompson said in '72, there are only two real parties, the Winners and Losers. And people would rather go with a Winner than with Honest. (Also, the Liberals have been spiraling downwards since they were clearly convicted - in the public mind and indeed in a few court cases - with brazen corruption about using public money for their own adverts. They haven't done their time in exile yet, so we're kind of stuck with the Conservatives.)
But my Not Utterly Off-Topic factoid is that "riding" is not the only thing that has vanished in England but survives in Canada. I was looking up the "Sheriff of Nottingham" once and wondered how "Sheriff" had translated from the 1100's to a western lawman. Turns out it's a slurring of "Shire Reeve", where "Reeve" was the commoner that kept order, provided public services, and collected taxes on behalf of the nobleman that owned the shire. It mentioned that "Reeve" survives today only in small Canadian municipalities that aren't big enough to call the head a "Mayor".
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.
Wow Canada, I didn't know you had it in you. You have to give them kudos for the creativity at least. They didn't go with the ol' rigging voting machines gag. A+ for creativity. If the Canadian media hasn't given a name to this debacle yet, I'd like to propose RoboGate. Shall we vote on it?
Illegal methods can undermine the legitimacy of a government even if they weren't ultimately responsible for winning the election. Just ask Richard Nixon.
... in canada. It's using a massively out-dated first past the post system while others use proportional representation. The country has been a two party liberal/con dictatorship for a long time and the elites like it that way. There is very little difference between how liberals and conservatives enact policy. Both govern from the right. Mots Canadians sadly are just as stupid as their american counterparts. In fact a majority of Canadians don't even know how parliament works. Voting today is a mere exercise in corporate marketing and branding then in anything else.
I'd say most modern government structures in the 21st century are obsolete because of what science has discovered about the human mind.
http://bit.ly/dYaWUc
I strongly hope this leads to a new election (with very strict oversight). Clearly the last election was tampered with in such a way that the outcome was altered, thus a new election is needed. While I hate elections, I hate knowing a party wrongly gained power even more.
Unfortunately, I'm less glad the subject seems to keep being our Harper Government(tm) doing some technologically backwards (ACTA, the C-60 DRM bill, the C-30 internet spying bill). And now they've descended into outright voter fraud - having inherited the other sleazeball methods of US right-wing politics (attack ads, stupid "tough of crime" policies, etc.)
I hope a number of people go to jail for a long, long time over this. From what we can tell, this occurred in dozens of ridings including a number that Conservatives only won by less than 100 votes. The Cons have thrown one staffer under the bus (incidentally, he was caught trying to grab a box of ballots and run out of a polling station as well last year, but yet, managed to stay employed with the party) - but there is no way he could've gotten all the voter info and done this on such a wide scale.
Personally, I hope that the RCMP gets involved, pulls the logs from the robocall company, and each and every seat won by the Conservatives where cheating was involved is recalled. Yeah, it'll be expensive - but so is three more years of these Nixonian, Stasi-like unethical dirt bags in office.
I have never voted for the NDP but I kept on getting propaganda from them presumably because the previous tenant was presumably an ardent supporter. At two different occasions, I received robocalls informing me that I was about to be placed in a conference call with the local NDP candidate around dinner time and I had a hell of a time getting the phone to hang up as it kept on calling me back when I put down the receiver.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Unfortunately we, in the states (and many other countries?) have also seen this sort of thing.
The Ohio elections were tainted by claims of electronic voting irregularities (don't know what became of that) and I believe several republican operatives have been convicted of similar phone hacking activities. I could go on about the hypocrisy of republican claims of voter fraud (despite ANY actual verified proof) which their solutions have the well documented effect of disenfranchising the poor and minorities. (Notice how many times those who warn you not to trust anyone are, themselves, the ones you shouldn't trust?).
Still, it's evident that the root cause is their religious self-righteousness these people feel that allows them to justify blatantly illegal acts (to only themselves fortunately, we aren't Indonesia yet!). If you honestly believed that you, or your party is doing the work of God (unlike say Obama who Rick Sanctorum says follows a "false theology"), you'd also do ANYTHING to guide you, your family and your country into the arms of God. I suspect some of their moral "leaders" don't really believe this and are just using these issues for personal gain just like they hypocritically advocate economic policies which they know will hurt the average republican voter (but pays off handsomely for them; isn't that right Rush Limbaugh?)
Maybe that's why the founding fathers put such a clear line between Church and State (please read Jefferson's exact, specific, detailed words on the subject before claiming otherwise).
Of course what's really scary are the number of evangelicals who are HOPING that the end times are here and are willing, again, to do anything to bring it about. My American Jewish friend thinks that is the only explanation for the fact that the fate of Israel completely controls American foreign policy (in the last republican debate, all the candidates indicated defending it was of the highest national priority). He cannot imagine that the Jewish lobby, significant as it is, could possibly generate that level of support.
Our only hope, if we get another Republican into office, is that they are one of the hypocritical ones and they understand that blowing up the world won't automatically send them (and their families!) to Heaven. Fortunately, all these religious "leaders" all over the world seem to understand this; notice any high ranking Ayatollahs volunteering for suicide belt duty?
Of course... not much will happen. The link below from an article about a Waterloo phone call problem, which also mentions the Guelph robocall problems listed in TFA above.
"Under the Elections Act, an election in a specific riding can be overturned if a "competent court" finds "there were irregularities, fraud or corrupt or illegal practices that affected the result of the election."
However any application to the court to contest the election must be made within 30 days of the election results being published in the Canada Gazette. A complaint can also be made the same day the applicant "knew or should have known of the occurrence of the alleged irregularity, fraud, corrupt practice or illegal practice."
Moreover, the Commissioner of Canada Elections would have to investigate and refer the matter to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which would in turn decide whether charges were warranted. All of which means it is premature even to suggest any election results could conceivably be overturned."
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/national/article/189607--inaccuracies-happen-elections-canada-says-after-misleading-phone-call
This is exactly the mindset that pushes the Tories to continually break the law.
Politicians. They're the same world over.
As much as I object to Tories I felt the need to FTFY.
My gran used to say "Son, the problem with politics in this country is that only politicians get into it."
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
How do we go about ensuring some sort of repercussions happen as a result of this? It seems to me that the Conservatives are able to pull off all kinds of stuff time and time again, without any effect. Should we, as voters, start recall campaigns? Or is there some mechanism for Elections Canada to invalidate an election?
So far one staffer has resigned as the allegations have landed, in what appears to be a case of falling-on-the-sword-itis. The scale of the scandal is actually pretty massive. As TFA points out, these calls have been confirmed to appear in 18 ridings, and others are being suspected. In those 18 ridings, the calls only hit households that were waffling Liberal (as per recent polling).
What this means is that someone had to plan the calls, get the party affiliation information on these 18 ridings (at least), hire RackNine, hire a bilingual voice actor, and see everything through. The likelihood of one person pulling all this off is next to nil, and it doesn't help that the Conservative party has a (rightly deserved) reputation for bullying and playing dirty pool with the rules.
And since it's going to come up, the Conservative Party of Canada is actually the result of a merger between two separate parties: the original Progressive Conservatives, who were the centre-right answer to the Liberal's centre-left, and the Canadian Alliance-née-Reform party, the country's (relatively)-far-right party. Prime Minister Harper was previously a member of the Canadian Alliance, and it's safe to say that his view, regardless of his party's, doesn't represent the overwhelming majority of Canadians. He's not all bad, but I will throw a party he is unceremoniously dumped from the Canadian political scene.
I lived in the Minister of Defence, Peter Mackay's riding for a few years in university.
There were literally people by the polling station in the student union telling students (most would vote Green Party) the polling station had moved. There was no liberal candidate as the Green Party Leader and the Liberal leader weren't opposing each other in their ridings. (No liberal candidate in Antigonish, no green wherever the liberal's from)
Absolutely Despicable.
And that also means that The Harper Government would also be out.
I'd say it simply means any and all people involved in this, and knowingly approving of it, are simply not fit to do ANY sort of governing in any democracy. This also goes for those who cover them.
Until you followed those vectors you don't even know how much of the conservative party is left (and what exist cannot govern period). If those vectors aren't followed, what does it say about Canada's claim to being a democracy?
You're right! A quick search shows that there have been cases of voter fraud as you say. (My apologies).
However, an equally quick search checking a non-partisan site (http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/, second hit on Google) indicates that the republican response, not only far outweighs these violations but would not have served to correct them. In fact, as I said before, the only discernible reason for these measures were to disenfranchise voters who were poor and or minorities. These, of course, are in the Democratic demographic.
I said nothing about which party has historically oppressed minorities (but from the subliminal guilt in your response I'd be willing to make a large bet that you're white!). I am fully aware that the Republican party is the heir to Lincoln. However Lyndon B. Johnson knew what he was talking about when he passed the civil rights act that he'd "given the South to the Republicans for a generation". He could read between the lines. Can you?
Unfortunately, judging from the KIND of attacks on Obama it looks like its taking a lot longer than a single generation.
The headline is seriously torqued, bordering on libel.
The Conservative Party of Canada hasn't be proven to have committed any crime.
The robocaller company (RackNine), is "Conservative" connected by virtue of having Conservative Party of Canada as a customer and I guess being based in the west.
The facts haven't come out yet, so we shouldn't throw stones.
It is plausible that the robo calls were done by one or two people. Canada is a bilingual country, no voice actor is required.
It seems highly unlikely that this was funded and organized by the Conservative party of Canada as an official part of their strategy.
Wow, Godwins law was proven right again super fast.
owenferguson, you sir, are a moron.
As someone who voted for the Conservatives in the last election I have to say I find this every disturbing. Everyone expects politicians to play hardball with each other: name-calling, negative campaigning, scare-mongering, over promising. No one likes it but it is what it is.
But playing hardball with voters is crossing the line. Every Canadian citizen has a right to vote, and someone in the conservative caucus was interfering with that right then they should be put in jail.
The funny thing is while I don't agree with many of the polices of this government I can at least understand why they are doing it. But between Toews, MacKay, and now this, I think the problem with the Tories is not policy but personality. Some of them are just assholes.
Eh? Canada shares North America with two other countries. And there's bunch down in Central America and South America. All of them are Americans of what kind or another. USA has no exclusive claim on "America".
FYI, I'm NOT Canadian.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
This company seems incredibly stupid. Who gives some stranger with a credit card access to a giant phone bank that can call millions of people and deliver an arbitrary voice message uploaded by cell phone?
Insanity. They're just asking to be used as part of a giant DoS attack. Suppose the listed numbers were for hospitals, airports, or government offices?
Like what happened in the states, like in Florida, where dead people just happen pop out of the grave and vote
The dead people were getting old, so they moved from Chicago to Miami, like most people in Chicago do when they get older.
Interesting factoid:
It's not commonly known, but the reason so many old people end up in Florida in the first place is that they shrink as they get older. As they shrink, their ability to see out of their cars decreases, until all they can see is the little crescent moon of sky between the dashboard and the top of their steering wheel -- this is also the primary cause of the so-called "ghost car effect", where a car appears to drive itself; the secondary cause, as any idiot knows, is Google. When this happens, all they can see is birds, and since birds are migratory, the old people end up going South as well, and end up in Florida (West of the Rocky Mountains, they end up in Arizona).
-- Terry
and I hope somebody calls it.
Had you actually understood context and history, you would have realized that Elizabeth II did not actually kill those people, and that things have actually gotten a *lot* better under her reign than they were beforehand.
Nobody is trying to deny the mistakes that were made historically. But it's utterly naive to try to pin them on the current administration, especially when the current administration has actually been trying to make things right.
Besides which, if you actually understood how our system of government works, you would realize that the last time the British crown exercised real power over Canada was in 1914, when they declared war on Germany for us. Since then, while the Queen is the titular head of state, they haven't actually refused to sign into law anything that was passed by both the house of commons and the senate, and they haven't made any unilateral decisions that affect Canada without consulting Canada's government. Perhaps the best example to support this (and strangely on topic) would be that even though Canada was still a colony in 1939, we waited a week after Britain declared war before joining in ourselves. It was well within Britain's power to declare war for us, but they allowed us to do it on our own.
In other words, it's not the Queen's fault. It's not even the crown's fault. It was the people who did it... perhaps with the blessing of the crown, but people should be held accountable for their own fuckups. The harm done to Canada's first nations peoples were done by the Hudson's Bay company, and by the duly elected government of Canada. And in case you missed it when it happened (it is one of the *only* good things Harper ever did, so I can see why you may have), the government has accepted responsibility for its part, and apologized. Now if only we could convince them to honour the treaties they signed.
Politicians. They're the same world over.
As much as I object to Tories I felt the need to FTFY.
My gran used to say "Son, the problem with politics in this country is that only politicians get into it."
Sorry, you're wrong.
That's what they want you to think.
Your Gran was part of the conspiracy.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I don't need to watch it. I know that the Native's were wronged in many ways. I know my Canadian history. I don't believe that 80 million natives were killed.
Nor, do I feel any shame or guilt in the mis-treatment of natives. That happen decades and centuries ago. Ie, long before my time. We are not the same country or world now as we were back then.
I feel the billions they get every year, and the massive special treatment under the laws more then makes up for any mistreatment in the past.
Yep, that's the weasel language they use to sidestep the fact that they failed to take the fuckin' puck and skate towards the goal...
In all likelihood, this is either the work of a rogue agent or even a well-intentioned mistake.
This is possible, but not "all likelihood. The Harper government has already shown a deep disrespect for democracy in several ways, and through several actions. Harper himself was caught cheating at a public debate, so cheating at an election... it is very much a question of moral character.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind." --- Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816
Doesn't sound like he's a big fan of Religion being a part of government, does he?
You're right about me not being well read in the Scriptures. However, I didn't say the BIBLE was urging these evangelicals to believe this stuff; i don't know where it comes from. Just flipping through cable TV shows and hearing all these "preachers" yell (I guess this is something, that if you truly believe in, can't be talked about quietly) about being prepared for the Rapture makes me wonder; what happens when the Rapture doesn't come?
Remember that guy last year who predicted the Rapture was coming in May? Then when it didn't he said it was in October? Well he and his followers sure did a lot of preparing for it. They probably knew Christan Scripture a lot better than you do, hell their lives depended on it! (I'm sure if you doubt me you could track them down and ask them, they're no longer so famous so they'll have time to talk to a true Christian believer).
I don't know where you fall on the spectrum of belief (well maybe it'll happen tomorrow but I'll still do my homework) if you believe in the old testament, the new testament or something else (Mormonism? Scientology?) but the very fact that you think this way in the 21st century (that's 2000 years and counting that you've been waiting) makes me worried that you might be getting a little impatient and want to hurry things up.
King Harper of the Republican Party of Canada. Christ what an asshole.
...the government has accepted responsibility for its part, and apologized.
Well, they apologized, and paid a settlement. Not the same thing as taking responsibility. The Royal Commission Report is still gathering dust.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Uh, not so very long ago, actually. The residential schools were only closed in the last few decades, and there was the forced removal and adoption of children of the last residential school generation, and now the government is trying to kill off the First Nations by careful mismanagement of funds that go --- or are supposed to go --- to reserves. The laws that set up the reserve system themselves possibly genocidal, as they require many First Nations people to live in small chunks of land (the South African Townships were based on the Canadian reserve model, you know), or give up their rights and treaty entitlements. Sorry, we are still the same country we were back then, we just keep it more quiet now.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Engage your brain for a minute. We're not talking about 2 or 3 ridings. The National Post (!) is currently reporting at least 14 ridings were robo-called, and the reality is that if you're going to use an illegal tactic and risk the shitstorm that is currently brewing, you don't fuck around with one or two ridings, you do the dirty in every race that's close enough for the tactic to make the difference. That's the problem. The larger, philosophical problem (that transcends politics) is this: how can you trust a government that would cheat on a massive scale to get elected, whatever colour their lawn sign?
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Yes it's conceivable as being a simple mistake. And yes a vote itself is secret. Polling done by polling agencies are not, at least by definition. Each party does their own internal polling and it's also conceivable the people that were given misdirected information were among those polled. Canadian ridings also have districts within them and while no one wins a district in this country the results are still published. Meaning if 50% of one district voted NDP, Liberal, or whatever political affiliation then all you have to do is target that district (and those would be known by candidates and the political associations of a riding).
I don't want to finger point and have a heavy bias against the Harper Government, so I will limit my personal opinion of this. Just have to point that out that while they don't know what you actually voted they can know your intention, and without that they can at least make a risk analysis given the voting tendency of that neighbourhood.
Even if they lost all 14 of these narrowly contested ridings
if (and keeping in mind that we're discussing a matter still under investigation and far from someone being found guilty in a court of law) it turns out that the government was complicit in this sort of vote fraud, it would be my deepest hope that at least some portion of the Conservative MPs would find enough ethical sense to step away from their party and cross the floor or act as independents. That would be the thing an hounorable MP would do. It would be nice to see my faith in people upheld.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Sadly, too few people remember anymore that poll taxes (or anything amounting to the same thing) are illegal in the US.
Unfortunately some of the people who have forgotten are those who pushed the conversion to all mail-in voting, with postage required by the voter. Sure, it's a small tax, but it's going up almost every year, will matter for some group of people, and is a speed-bump in the road to voting.
...with only 39% of the popular vote.
That's the beauty of not having a two-party system. The winning party almost never gets anything close to a majority. Of course this is close to what happened in the US in 1992 when Ross Perot drew enough Republican votes to allow Clinton to slip in with a whopping 42% of the popular vote.
And then this happened.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
In Canada, felons don't lose their franchise. For now.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Here is a link to one of the recorded robocalls: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/1221254309/ID=1917988496
Before audio was made available, the Conservative spin team was saying that it was an administrative error and that they were trying to help people find their polling station but they incorrectly crosslinked some postal codes. When the audio became available, clearly and fraudulently stating that the call was from "Elections Canada" they started playing dumb.
It doesn't matter. This should have never been done and it was it shows us what the gov is really about which is they can't be trusted to govern Canada in the best interest of Canadians. Look at the opposition to bill C-11, C-30 and how the gov just doesn't give a flying fuck about the consequences of these bills.
A gov official named Vic Toews calling Canadians opposed to the bill paedophile sympathisers has no respect for Canadian citizens.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Not so much a merger as a hostile and fraudulent takeover engineered from the top. I was a member of the Progressive Conservative party at the time and every vote taken on the topic of the so-called Alliance (an alliance of the former Reform Party with nothing whatsoever, apart from itself) the result was nearly 100% against any discussions whatsoever on any subject. They were recognized as radical right-wing kooks and rightly shunned. Whatever its shortcomings, the old PC party's members were often highly intelligent, respected democracy and despised corruption. Such a party would accommodate corporate interests but stopped short of completely selling out the country for personal gain. EX PM Mulroney's despicable government in a way set the present events in motion by ruining the PC party's reputation.
Nobody is coming. YOU have to fix it. YOU have to RAISE HELL.
Why do hard left and hard right zealots always take the stance that their party is angelic in comparison to their major rival? Do any of you remember the Sponsorship scandal? How about the red book and its broken promises? What about a Prime Minister whose family company had its headquarters based out of the Barbados so that it could avoid Canadian taxes? How about a party that put a 'pirate tax' on all digital media, regardless how you were going to use that media? Or a still sitting MP from Vancouver Centre whom, over the past 10 years, has made enough crazy comments to make Stockwell Day seems sane in comparison? Every party elected to power does stupid things and because of this, no party will put in place the laws necessary to ensure the right people serve jailtime when their actions are exposed. Furthermore, the person at the top rarely has a clue that it's going on until after the action has taken place and has been exposed by the media or the opposition. There's not enough time in the day to keep track of even a handful of subordinate MP's while running a country, and those MP's are not going to communicate everything they've done. Likewise, senior bureaucrats are taking the same stance with the MP that holds their portfolio. To think this is going to change is to be idealistically naive.
All that whining about terrorism while all that right wing election stealing machinery moves North.
"Let's say you're present governor of Illinois and you're in a room with a former governor of Illinois on your right and a former governor of Illinois on your left. Chances are the room you're in is jail."
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Here's the thing. It doesn't matter if it was a rogue agent or a mistake. What matters is whether it materially affected the outcome of the election.
Racknine apparently keeps pretty good logs of all the information, so we should be able to find out how many calls were done and in what districts. Elections Canada should _assume_ that each robocall results in one less vote. Is that an accurate assumption? No. But it will certainly make people think twice about robocalls in the future.
Take that number, and figure out if it (along with any other crap found) would have changed the outcome. If so -- call a new election in that riding, and fine the party for each robocall.
Also -- jail time and fines for the originator of the calls as well. So if you robocall to help a party, you're going to jail and you'll pay a fine, and so will the party you're "helping".
Require that all robocalling firms accurately log ALL outgoing mass messages and payments during election seasons. There doesn't have to be any censorship, but there does have to be accurate sourcing.
And is Racknine saying that they can't be bothered to listen to the messages that they're sending out by the thousands? I mean, two minutes of listening is just impossible? Someone from Racknine should have checked the outbound messages and said -- hey, we're not going to send out something that moves a polling location without checking with Elections Canada first.
Right about now, I think you'd get about 5 million people raising their hands.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The Conservative Party was not involved in this action. Neither it seems was the company used by the Conservative Party. All you had to do was read the story in the National Post. In fact, the post could be seen as an attempt to mislead Canadians with reference to the Conservative Party!!!
This is not a new height in anything - Nixon was doing shit like this on a regular basis.
Of course they don't. The conservatives are like a kid with a christmas list they've been writing for 9 years, with an ever expanding list of things they wanted done, that they couldn't do as an opposition party or as a minority. Now that they're in charge it's time to reward all the party faithful for the last 9 + years (more than that for those in the precursor parties) with all of the things they've been pushing for. It doesn't matter if the idea is 10 years out of date, completely invalid, useless, a waste of money or anything else. They're finally in charge, and all of the things they wanted to do, more prisons, ditch the gun registry, ditch kyoto, massively expand the navy, drill drill drill (or however you want to describe the oilsands), etc etc etc.
Unfortunately some of the people who have forgotten are those who pushed the conversion to all mail-in voting, with postage required by the voter. Sure, it's a small tax, but it's going up almost every year, will matter for some group of people, and is a speed-bump in the road to voting.
Absentee ballots require no postage. The catch is that you must drop it off at a post office.
In Canada mail to and from Members of Parliament and other key government official are completely postage free. You can drop the mail off at any mailbox. So it's a natural extension that all ballots are postage free as well. I'm extremely surprised to discover that this is not the case in US. You must pay the government in order to contact the government by mail? Huh?
Making all political mail and ballots postage free (without going through the post office) is probably pocket change to the USPS.
putting this at the feet of the Conservative Party of Canada is premature and possibly libellous.
... ....
My personal bet (you saw it here first!) is that this was a botched operation by some union activitists
My personal bet is that you're a hypocrite.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, but at least one member of the party has already fallen on his sword (resigned) over this.
Now how far something goes to be a "party" issue VS "members of the party" I don't know, but if somebody is resigning over the issue you can pretty much put the ball in that court.
How do you cheat at a public debate?
spreading these lies pretending to be form the other party makes it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The funny (sad) thing is that Hitler seems to have set the bar for what actually qualifies as a bad leader. That is, until a politician literally starts an ethnic cleansing program, most people can't really see anything wrong. And the scary thing is that if you change 'jew' to 'muslim' there are plenty of people today who probably wouldn't even see the similarity and would happily vote for Hitler 2.0.
People are fickle and irrational. If any of my relatives (on one specific side of the family...) got a 2am call from a political party they were going to vote for, I'm pretty sure they would either change their vote or not vote at all. And any who didn't would surely believe the moved voting booth story and probably get frustrated and go home when they couldn't find it.
It's better to use some other leader that rose to power as a result of massive fraud which can be used as a comparison rather than Hitler. Using Hitler invariably invites people to spout off about Godwin even if the comparison is perfectly apt with regard to the illegal electioneering.
There are plenty: Putin, Bush Jr 2000, many middle east leaders, Kim Jung Il, etc.
You are right. I suppose having just watched a documentary on Hitler's rise to power made him my immediate reference point, and I didn't consider how it would have been interpreted. When I was using him as a reference point I wasn't pertaining to what he did once he did have his absolute power, rather all the political meddling he did to allow himself to stay get there and stay there.
Using more recent people like GW Bush/D Cheney might have been better, especially since the recent conservative "You are with us or with the child pornographers" (for Bill C-30) sounds very similar to Bush's "You are with us or against us" spiel.
I suppose the only chance we have in Canada is to have some sort of positive influence of people in conservative ridings, to undo some of the damage they have enabled.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The recording is available at http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/1221254309/ID=1917988496 that specifically introduces the caller as Elections Canada. There is no mistake here. Even if this was directed at their own supporters based on an incorrectly entered postal code, the recording identifies itself as being an official call from a government agency.
You are right, you are over reacting. Killing 6 million jews is a lot worse.
I probably am, but it doesn't make Harper right either.
He didn't do this until he was in power. I was referring to what he did prior to getting into that position. BTW Lets not forget about the all the other people he disliked, that were sent to the camps, when quoting that number.
I could have probably used someone else as a reference, such as GW Bush/D Chainey or Putin, but I had just been watching a program on Hitler's rise to power and he ended up being my first pick as a reference.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So you're false flagging the false flag ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
hard time believing someone from a Conservative party would do such a thing. If it said Liberal....they cheat all the time in elections. In the US, it is a given that they cheat. like "finding" more votes in a trunk of a car, or paying people to vote.
Well... the rules stipulated that the party leaders were not allowed to bring in notes. Harper snuck a crib-sheet in, and had it on his lap.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Conservatives Mislead Voters
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Fair enough, he didn't kill 6 million Jews to come to power, but he did have these guys called the SA, and he did sort of write Mein Kampf which effectively described what his plans were ahead of time. I mean, you're not going to get much more clarity out of a politician than that. As far as I know, Harper has not writtien "My Struggle, Eh?" yet.
And was Hitler the most evil man in history? I guess it depends on what you considered to be "evil". And really, if you consider pure evil to be sheer selfishness, Little Suzy or Johnny down the street could be more evil. What I would say is that Hitler was one of the most *dangerous* men in history, and that was a combination of his evil and his ability to act on it. His potential for danger was very high, and if the Gernams *had* actually built an atomic bomb, you can be sure he would not have hesitated to use it as often as possible. In that regard, the casualties removing him in WWII were probably less than the casualties of letting him get away with his plans.
Probably the most dangerous man in history was Stalin. He killed more people, but since he only killed his own people, and the rest by proxy through Cold War antics, no one really cares as much.
Its nothing to do with politics I think. It's more that it seems slightly odd, as it would be if you called your thumb a hand. Or a trunk an elephant. Or a steak a cow. Oh well anyway, I like the word gringo :)
Maybe I am being a little over-reactive
No, you're being over-the-top stupid. Not liking some of Harper's policies (I don't like a lot of them either) doesn't justify this kind of hyperbole.
There's a fable about a boy falsely shouting about a wolf that a whole lot of people need to learn before they start tossing verbal grenades.
-Zirbert
http://zirbert.blogspot.com/
Judging from my readings on World War II, such deliberate attempts by "conservatives" to sabotage democracy would once have had severe repercussions.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Deceive, decoy, deny -- you win elections first, and then worry about the fallout from your tactics after the election, when you are in a better position to deal with it. Can't say I'm surprised that our northern neighbors engage in the same kind of election hijinks that have plagued our plebiscites. When we get reports of dead voters casting ballots in their elections, this might become interesting.
I know, I know, alarmist title and slightly OT contents, sorry about that. But, ...
Shouldn't this tell us that democracy doesn't really work? I am not sure if it can work at all - I hope it can, but as far as I can see, it can only work if all participants are in complete agreement that not only the letter, but the spirit, of the rules has to be followed absolutely. If only there were a way to ensure that only people who had great personal integrity and were highly competent could run for office.