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 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.
American mainstream news generally doesn't give a shit about international events unless it involves celebrities, celebrities dying, normal people dying en masse, or distant places that the government claims to be warring with or policing. Canadian politics simply aren't worth column inches, unless it directly affects the States or the media's ability to follow a story.
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.
No real Canadian actually thinks they are legitimate.
So what percentage of the Canadian population are "real", and what percentage are fake?
I suppose I'm neither, since I'm not a Canadian. I was born about 50 miles south of the border. But, as the saying goes, some of my best friends are Canadian. I'd like to know how to figure out if they're real or fake.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats 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.
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.
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.
Is this a variation of the "No True Scotsman" argument?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
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?
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.
All forms of robocalling should be outlawed in all countries. Penalties should be: 1st offense, 1001 slaps on the wrist by a robowristslapper ... 2nd offense, 1001 punches in the face by a robofacepuncher ... 3rd offense, 1001 knifestabs by a roboknifestabber.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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
"No True Scotsman," etc.
40% of us think the Conservative Party is legitimate. You don't have to like them, but it's a huge mistake to pretend their supporters aren't "Canadian" enough.
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
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.