Database and IP Records Tie Election Fraud To Canada's Ruling Conservatives

choongiri writes "Canada's election fraud scandal continues to unfold. Elections Canada just matched the IP address used to set up thousands of voter suppression robocalls to one used by a Conservative Party operative, and a comparison of call records found a perfect match between the illegal calls, and records of non-supporters in the Conservative Party's CIMS voter tracking database, as well as evidence access logs may have been tampered with. Meanwhile, legal challenges to election results are underway in seven ridings, and an online petition calling for an independent public inquiry into the crisis has amassed over 44,000 signatures. The Conservative Party still maintains their innocence, calling it a baseless smear campaign."

Comments

Baseless?

[neokushan]

Sounds like there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. At some point, it just stops being a coincidence.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but when you repeat something enough, and suppress alternative voices, it becomes true in the minds of the masses.

I don't know if mass media in Canada are under the total control of the far right as in the U.S., Australia, and England, but I bet they have a strong hand at least. In the US, one of the major networks is owned by one of the major arms manufacturers, GE who also forced their employees to sit through right-wing propaganda videos narrated by Ronald Reagan.

The same things have happened in several elections in the US, all Republicans (although the Democratic party is pretty much corrupt right-wing corporatist too). No consequences. It is so bad that there are even laws being passed to suppress votes of folks not likely to support an extremist right-wing ticket. Same thing too, smoking gun evidence, a hand wave from the accused, and all is forgotten.

Re:Baseless?

[geekmux]

Sounds like there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. At some point, it just stops being a coincidence.

We passed the point of coincidence and delved deep into blatant corruption in the US years ago. Doesn't surprise me that it has flowed outside of our borders. After all, we don't punish corruption. We reward it.

The problem is not discovering what is wrong. The real problem is finding you have no control to do anything about it anymore.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

are under the total control of the far right as in the U.S.

There are maybe three "far" right media outlets in the US, of any consequence. Not coincidentally, that's why they're so big.

Unless, of course, you're so far left you think the MSNBC, CNN, NYT, etc. are all "far right". Which is ridiculous.

Re:Baseless?

[msobkow]

That's my biggest worry. That at the end of it, even with evidence pointing specifically to the Conservatives, that they'll get away with some wrist-slap fine and letting go a couple of people to be sacrificed to the court wolves.

But I can tell you this: The Harper government will not let go of power without fighting through every possible appeal in the courts that they can, even if this investigation doesn't take longer than their term of office. Mindless political party animal that it is, it's equivalent to the survival instinct is the instinct to seek power. Power is the food of the political animal, money is just the handler's proffered carrots.

There have to be more severe penalties for this kind of blatant interference with the government and electoral processes. In light of the Conservatives previous conviction for funding fraud which is what led to an election in the first place, I posit that the Conservatives should be stripped not only of office, but of their federal party status, officially and permanently disbanded.

We neither need nor want the Canadian Reform Alliance Party under any banner or name.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, at first glance, it smells like a cracked-wifi smear job. (Which may or may not mean I'm paranoid...)

I mean, what kinda fucking amateur would you have to be to pull that sort of operation from your home, instead of taking a laptop in your car and parking near some public WiFi access point? Then I think about all the dumb people I know, and suddenly the simple election "fraud" seems more likely (scare quotes because wouldn't it be great if both parties were to do this, and all the morons who'll believe anything a pretexter on the phone says were to get disenfranchised?), but it is still within the realm of possibility at this point.

Re:Baseless?

[Gonoff]

I take it, that is their explanation to the court, If that isn't deeemed to be a valid explanation to the courts for people being done over by their corporate friends (RIAA etc), why should the courts accept it here?

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you can try to shift the fulcrum to the right like that, but you won't end up with a balanced democracy. CNN, MSNBC, and the NYT are certainly right-of-center, as is the political perspective of many citizens whose interest in politics is directed by infotainment.

Re:Baseless?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In the US, one of the major networks is owned by one of the major arms manufacturers, GE who also forced their employees to sit through right-wing propaganda videos narrated by Ronald Reagan.

GE recently sold NBC to Comcast. That's probably even worse for the country as a whole though.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't it make more sense to run a speedy emergency court session to review the evidence, if possible fraud is likely run new elections, and later lock up those directly involved in ordering the fraud? Then penalise the party financially for the cost of running a new election. If the cost is not practical (unavoidable or otherwise would cause disbanding of the party) then start looking at the roster for the party and fine any new party which is made up of 50% or more of the old.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop calling it "The Harper Government". You're just playing into the power trip of that asshole we currently did not elect as our prime minister.

Re:Baseless?

[MightyMartian]

You can always vote for a third party or independent.

Re:Baseless?

[Ksevio]

You mean the mass media is heavily slanted away from the extreme right wing once you exclude fox news

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're absolutely clueless about left or right. The US has a right-wing party, and an ultra right-wing party. Both are made up of corrupted corporatists, which in the rest of the world probably would be called by their right name: Fascists.

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

I don't know if mass media in Canada are under the total control of the far right as in the U.S.,

So youre saying NPR, Huffington Post, MSNBC, CBS etc are all far right?

Ok then.

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

Name a major right-leaning news publication or radio station.

Re:Baseless?

[Ksevio]

Fox News is pretty big and there are lots of examples of them leaning far right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies

Re:Baseless?

[Hamsterdan]

That would imply those in power aren't above the law. Politicians, police and rich people don't have to obey the same laws as ordinary people.

Re:Baseless?

[squiggleslash]

Pretty much all of them with the kinda-sorta exception of MSNBC, which pretends to be liberal but nobody - left or right - takes remotely seriously anyway.

Sorry dude, but the whole "The media is liberal" whine became more or less ridiculous during the 1990s All Clinton's Penis All The Time stuff, followed by sixish years of "How Dare Your Critificate Our Glorious Leader President Bush", until Katrina when even some Fox News journalists started to find it difficult to carry on pretending the man was anything other than utterly incompetent.

The only reason you think CNN et al are "liberal" are because you watch a network that insists the rest of the networks are "liberal" and that it, somehow, is the exception. C'mon, you're still pretending Obama is most liberal president in history, despite the fact he's continued virtually all the far right policies of the last guy, has a cabinet with a large number of Republicans in it, refused to support any Health Care Reform proposal unless it originated with the Republicans themselves, has done none of the things you pretended he'd do when he got into office, and has a consistent record of refusing to do the right thing if he thinks the Tea Party will throw a fit with one or two tiny, insignificant, exceptions (oh wow, he caught up with the rest of the country and allowed gay people to serve their country. Whoopie doo.)

Realistically, the closest thing liberals have to a voice in the media right now, with the exception of the "I know they're telling me what I want to hear solely for marketing reasons" MSNBC crap, is a fucking comedian. Great. That's our voice in the media. A clown.

But, hey, carry on whining.

Re:Baseless?

[preaction]

Unlike Canada, the news in the US no longer has to present a balanced viewpoint. That rule was removed from FCC regulations during the Reagan Administration. Also, they no longer have to tell you what is fact and what is opinion. In other words, nobody is monitoring journalistic integrity.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

NPR is unbiased until any pressure is put on it, in which case it caves like a cardboard box.

The Huffington Post: I wouldn't describe a collection of blogs as "mass media" in the conventional sense.

MSNBC is "liberal", but only as a marketing gimmick. Name anyone who takes them seriously. Ironically, the only show close to worth watching on it (and that's stretching the term "worth watching" is Morning Joe.

CBS? Are you kidding me? You still living in the 1960s when Dan Rather dared to suggest a pointless war that was causing colossal suffering and misery, was unwinnable in any real sense, and was damaging the US's reputation of being the world's advocate of freedom, might, well, be a bad idea?

Oh wait, no, Dan also published something that turned out to be a forgery about George W Bush - uh, except he was fired for that. Right. And also while the documents were false, the story was essentially true and the only remarkable aspect of the story is that it was a story at all, everyone pretty much knew Bush got out of Vietnam by using his connections to get a cushy National Guard position, at a time when the Guard wasn't actually used for anything useful.

CBS, incidentally, is run by Sumner Redstone. You might want to look up his politics, and ask yourself whether someone who is, arguably, to the right of Rupert Murdoch, would countenance his news departments being liberal?

Here's an idea. Stop watching Fox. Fox's marketing is that it's the only non-liberal media outlet. It's not. Fox is pretty insanely right wing, but the rest of the media isn't exactly far behind.

Re:Baseless?

[Solandri]

To be fair, has there been any evidence that this was condoned and coordinated at a high level in the Conservative party? Even the summary implicates a single IP address. That would seem to suggest it was the brainchild of a single or few rogue members, not the party overall.

You're dealing with a large organization in a very free society. It's very possible someone in the party is guilty of doing this, but the leadership is telling the truth when they proclaim innocence. Because it's political, there's a tendency for people who disagree with the politics to automatically assume any corruption goes all the way to the top.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

What party you want or don't want is irrelevant. Your post is not even finished and you've already moved on from the evidence of vote tampering to a mini-rag about some political party. It must be a canuck memory hole. You're just as bad as that ignorant mass of gits to the south.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, this type of corruption is analogous to the power-envy by U.S. 'intelligence' agency personnel for the Israeli Mossad's impunity. The Mossad was called on the carpet by the Israeli supreme court for detaining suspects and torturing them during interrogation while holding them without the benefit of legal counsel, against the right of habeas corpus. It didn't take the CIA long to 'catch up' once 9/11 came along.

Canada's 'conservatives' had only to watch the success of voter suppression on the part of the Republicans in the U.S. to interpret the lack of consequence as a green light for their own abysmal activities.

Glad they were outed. Now we'll see of Canadians can make something stick where the U.S. failed.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

but the leadership is telling the truth when they proclaim innocence

Right, and you know this how? And yet for some reason you think the corruption doesn't go all the way to the top, or you wouldn't have made the quoted statement. You are assuming the opposite of the other side for no better reason than you want it to be true. But the evidence is implicating the IP addresses of people in the party, and unless the leaders of that party want to admit that they have zero control over what people do with party-owned computers, they have to admit some sort of guilt over the matter.

Re:Baseless?

[theshowmecanuck]

And if anyone cares to notice, since 60 Minutes (CBS flagship "investigative news" show) was sued over the tobacco whistle blower story, they haven't done almost any investigative journalism. I certainly haven't seen any in years. It's all most interviews and fluff pieces. i.e. stuff we already know about. Investigation isn't really part of the show any more. Mind you they may have some investigative pieces still, but as I said, I can't say I've seen any that rank with what they used to do in their heyday in the 70s and 80s. It's obvious their bosses don't like people prying into things that may upset their friends.

Re:Baseless?

[swalve]

+1 "Critificate"

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

We neither need nor want the Canadian Reform Alliance Party under any banner or name.

To those not familiar with Canadian politics. The Conservative and the Reform parties united. The name when the two paries united was chosen to be 'Conservative Reform Alliance Party'. They changed it really quickly when they realised the acronim. What do they say about the 'first impression'?

Re:Baseless?

[swalve]

More accurately, Fox News, et. al., launched a massive campaign to discredit the President, and with all that, only managed to convince a couple of percent of voters to switch to their side.

Re:Baseless?

[swalve]

The best kind of corruption doesn't go to the top. You get an idiot to run things, don't tell him anything, and then foster an atmosphere of "I'm sure The Leader would be pleased if you could help him in any way. Obviously, (WINK WINK) don't break any laws, because that would be wrong."

Re:Baseless?

[dubstar]

That's my biggest worry. That at the end of it, even with evidence pointing specifically to the Conservatives, that they'll get away with some wrist-slap fine and letting go a couple of people to be sacrificed to the court wolves.

But I can tell you this: The Harper government will not let go of power without fighting through every possible appeal in the courts that they can, even if this investigation doesn't take longer than their term of office. Mindless political party animal that it is, it's equivalent to the survival instinct is the instinct to seek power. Power is the food of the political animal, money is just the handler's proffered carrots.

There have to be more severe penalties for this kind of blatant interference with the government and electoral processes. In light of the Conservatives previous conviction for funding fraud which is what led to an election in the first place, I posit that the Conservatives should be stripped not only of office, but of their federal party status, officially and permanently disbanded.

We neither need nor want the Canadian Reform Alliance Party under any banner or name.

It would seem that a good deal of Canada did not agree with you upon that last point in the previous election.

I don't see why the CPC government would even fathom any shift in their governing status because someone working on a campaign in some corner of the country decided to do something stupid and illegal. That person, and anyone else implicated should most certainly be held to full account - but when you look to paint entire swaths of Canadians with guilt for the actions of others it's only your own sense of justice you're distorting.

For what it's worth, I believe the penalty for electoral fraud is actually quite stiff - and I hope the people involved in this debacle get no leniency.

Re:Baseless?

[DesScorp]

Unlike Canada, the news in the US no longer has to present a balanced viewpoint.

Good, I prefer it that way. Know why? Because the "balanced viewpoint" was always fake before. Walter Duranty was Stalin's mouthpiece at the NY Times. Walter Cronkite conducted an anti-Vietnam campaign in his position at CBS, and on the eve of the biggest defeat the US forces ever dealt to the North Vietnamese the day after Tet.

I much prefer a British type press system where you know where your newspapers and stations stand. Quality of reporting can go hand in hand with an editorial viewpoint if done correctly. Both the Telegraph and the Guardian... both 180 from each other in viewpoint... still do good journalism. Our "balance" was an illusion and a farce. I may not like MSNBC, but they have the virtue of being more honest than NBC, which tries to pretend that they're centrist and above it all.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of like "Operation Iraqi Liberation".

Re:Baseless?

[Luckyo]

Pretty much entire rest of the world is "too far left" by your definition.

Re:Baseless?

[Mr 44]

the news in the US no longer has to present a balanced viewpoint.

I don't think you have a very good grasp of American history, and the form newspapers and tabloids have taken, over the past 200+ years.

. In other words, nobody is monitoring journalistic integrity.

Are you saying you wish there was a governmental department in charge of arbitrating truth, which would have the power to censor or re-write the news as it saw fit? That sounds like a much more terrifying option to me.

Re:Baseless?

[currently_awake]

Until the last election the NDP was a third party, now they form the opposition party. Things can change. "Throwing away" your vote gets noticed if many people do it, then the major parties start changing their policies to capture those lost votes.

Re:Baseless?

[sycodon]

And also while the documents were false, the story was essentially true and the only remarkable aspect of the story is that it was a story at all, everyone pretty much knew Bush got out of Vietnam by using his connections to get a cushy National Guard position, at a time when the Guard wasn't actually used for anything useful.

You obviously learned this from the false documents eh?

Do you even read the crap you write?

Re:Baseless?

[J Story]

Sounds like there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. At some point, it just stops being a coincidence.

My guess is that someone (not too intelligent) in that campaign office went off the rails. There was another news story of evidence given to Elections Canada of some guy there talking to others about the twisted stuff going on in the States. I'm guessing he decided to import American values on the sly. With any luck, he'll get himself hauled into court.

Re:Baseless?

[guises]

It's not just pretty big, Fox is the largest news channel by a wide margin:

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/05/04/cable-news-ratings-for-thursday-may-3-2012/132406/

Four times the viewership of CNN, and more than every other news channel combined. The irony is that they use the term "mainstream media" as though they were talking about someone else.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

>I don't know if mass media in Canada are under the total control of the far right as in the U.S., Australia, and England,

The cluelessness of that statement is absolutely beyond me. The only right-of-centre major (tv) media in the US is Fox, and the only major right-of-centre media in Canada are Sun News and the Toronto Star.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Initially, Elections Canada was only investigating one riding: Guelph. However there's been indications that robocalls were used in nearly all "swing" ridings and rumours that Election Canada has started new investigations into the hundreds of allegations of illegal calls across the country. These calls primarily appear to have been used to discourage probable Liberal and NDP voters, but not Conservative voters. So yes, so far evidence is circumstantial but widespread, and something that widespread implies a farily high level of coordination.

Re:Baseless?

[am 2k]

Fox News is pretty big and there are lots of examples of them leaning far right

If you can call Fox News a "news publication", I can call The Lord of the Rings a "nature documentary".

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying you wish there was a governmental department in charge of arbitrating truth, which would have the power to censor or re-write the news as it saw fit?

You show exceptionally little understanding of the word "nobody". If you want to play apologist for the US politics, you'll have to do better than that.

That sounds like a much more terrifying option to me.

... that's because your agenda (aka "doctrine") tells you that only the government should be able to monitor.

Please, educate yourself a bit more. In a free country, there are choices beyond corporate monopoly vs government control. Like, you know, independent researchers (aka "nutjobs"), vocal citizen groups (aka "terrorists"), whistleblowers (aka "criminals"). Never before has communication made it so easy for individuals to coordinate, rally, or spread information. The Middle-East is reaping the benefits already, you've yet to see the light.

Like one of your founding fathers has said, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. If that's too high a price to pay for you and your fellow citizens, you get what you deserve.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Pretty much entire rest of the world
>is "too far left" by your definition.

Why not? Actually, there are much more leftist populist regimes than rightists populist regimes in the Third World, and most of European democracies are structurally social-democratic (though, I suspect, Europe will slightly shift to the right in upcoming years).

Re:Baseless?

[msobkow]

Well it sure as hell isn't the CANADIAN government! The election was invalid due to voter interference.

Re:Baseless?

[MightyMartian]

Or they fade into obscurity as the Liberals did in Great Britain and as the Canadian Liberal party seems on the cusp of doing. The problem in the US is that the two big parties control the electoral systems of many parts of the US, thus assuring they retain ultimate control of the ballot itself.

At any rate what Canada is about to experience is what happened in Great Britain when the Liberals died off in the 1920s. In both cases a more centrist party was essentially replaced by a more strident left wing party.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't know if mass media in Canada are under the total control of the far right as in the U.S., Australia, and England"

How you come to make statements like this? Two of the main newspapers in the UK are respectively socialist and liberal. The BBC is notoriously left wing. Australia's media is more of the same.

Re:Baseless?

[HArchH]

1. It is unimportant "how big" Fox news is. Competitively, it is one choice among many in the cable and broadcast channel options. When you zap through the TV channels the ONLY right-leaning network you'll find is Fox in its few forms: Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, and a local Fox affiliate (which might or might not be right-leaning based on the local owner). NBC has a $57B market cap. Fox's market cap is $48B. So Fox is smaller than NBC (for what that's worth).

2. It is correct the General Electric no longer owns a majority of NBC, though it owns a large minority. It is ridiculous to conclude that NBC was ever right-leaning. GE's CEO, Immelt, has not only tanked the value of GE to its shareholders (~$41 when he took over, ~$19.25 now), but has maintained a very cordial personal relationship with Pres Obama since before he was President and serves in appointed positions in the Obama administration. Thus, your premise that GE is right-wing because it makes arms is false. GE makes almost everything, including lip-marks on the President's butt. But NBC was left-leaning before Immelt took over and it remains un-repentantly left-leaning today.

3. When you zap through the channels on TV you'll run into the following left-leaning "news" channels: NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Headline News (HLN), PBS. This list ignores the right-leaning entertainment content you can find on channels like OWN.

I have no problem with broadcasters using their own resources to put forward material that supports the political point of view. It galls me, however, that so-called news sources (papers, magazines, channels, etc.) use their protections under the first Amendment (which includes freedom of the press) to support one political establishment over another. IMHO, they have a moral obligation to attack any and all political power holders to hold them accountable to the people, from whom all rights flow to the government.

Name a major right-leaning news publication or radio station.

--> Wall Street Journal (also owned by Fox, I believe).

--> There are many radio stations on a local basis that carry right-leaning content. "Every city" has a station that carries EIB (Rush L.), Hedgecock, Hanity, Beck, Ingraham, etc. The fact that these stations and channels make a living at this on a local and national level in the face of the print and television competition is interesting. It's very difficult to tell what it reflects in the thinking of the people to have these various view points in these different formats so readily available, and I suppose, all being supported by advertising revenues.

It's far easier to name left-leaning (liberal) publications: NYT, Washington Post, LA Time, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, Businessweek, Time. Left-leaning radio isn't readily listed (at least for me).

Finally, if you think the right (conservative) side controls mass media you are smoking too much weed or are looking at the world through intolerant glasses. Hollywood is an almost exclusive left-wing bastion. Disney (which owns ABC and ESPN) is as left-wing as they come.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right-leaning in terms of local party politics (e.g pro-Republican) isn't the same thing as right-leaning in a broader sense, e.g. foreign policy.

If you look at the media analysis of Noam Chomsky he shows clearly how NY Times, Washington Post, etc, take a very right-wing position on international politics. e.g., New York Times turn into FOX News complete with fiery (uninformed rhetoric) when the subject is Venezuela. New York Times follows the FOX journalistic model when it's a challenge to US corporate interests.

btw, look at how Chavez is portrayed on every private Venezuelan TV channel, and it's suspiciously similar to how FOX portrays Obama, but they've been at it for 10 years, i think FOX might have picked up some tricks from that campaign.

Re:Baseless?

[JBaustian]

There have to be more severe penalties for this kind of blatant interference with the government and electoral processes. In light of the Conservatives previous conviction for funding fraud which is what led to an election in the first place, I posit that the Conservatives should be stripped not only of office, but of their federal party status, officially and permanently disbanded.

Why don't they just find out who this "Pierre Poutine" character is and charge him, if indeed he has committed a crime? Of course robocalls should be discouraged, but is it really illegal to make them?

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

NPR is unbiased until any pressure is put on it, in which case it caves like a cardboard box.

Baloney. Every host on NPR is left-leaning, and anyone who has listened to their shows knows it. I listen to em too, and I enjoy the debates, but to pretend that Kojo or Diane Rehm are anything other than left leaning is to delude yourself. And when you say "caves", are you implying it caves to the right? Because that would be absolutely absurd.

Here's an idea. Stop watching Fox.

I dont (except incidentally, as its on near the water cooler), but thanks for trying to pigeonhole me. I probably get more of my news from BBC than I do Fox.

My "facts" were taken from research, such as this:

These arguments intensified when it was revealed that the Democratic Party received a total donation of $1,020,816, given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks (NBC, CBS, ABC), while the Republican Party received only $142,863 via 193 donations.[16] Both of these figures represent donations made in 2008.

But no, nothing to see here, theyre all conservative.

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

That whole section of the linked article is pretty revealing btw (and contrary to GP's point). Another snippet:

In a survey conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1997, 61% of reporters stated that they were members of or shared the beliefs of the Democratic Party. Only 15% say their beliefs were best represented by the Republican Party.[18] This leaves 24% undecided or Independent.

Yea, 15% is indicative of a real big conservative bias, right?

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_States#Claims_of_a_liberal_bias
Political contributions...

These arguments intensified when it was revealed that the Democratic Party received a total donation of $1,020,816, given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks (NBC, CBS, ABC), while the Republican Party received only $142,863 via 193 donations.

Survey says...

In a survey conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1997, 61% of reporters stated that they were members of or shared the beliefs of the Democratic Party. Only 15% say their beliefs were best represented by the Republican Party.[18] This leaves 24% undecided or Independent.

Study says...

Self-described as "the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly,[22] a study by political scientists Tim Groseclose of UCLA and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri at Columbia. The study's stated purpose was to document the range of bias among news outlets.[23] The research concluded that of the major 20 news outlets studied "18 scored left of the average U.S. voter, with CBS Evening News, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal, while only the Fox News "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter."

I dunno, seems like a pretty weak case to say "the media is right-leaning", given all of that, unless you intend to state that WIkipedia itself is right leaning and tampering with the article. Theres a section on possible conservative bias, but it is, predictably, centered on Fox news.

Re:Baseless?

[Vintermann]

Depressing thing is, they must have prepared for this. You do not rampantly break the laws with robocalls to thousands of citizens and expect it to not get publicity.

The guy who did it did a lot to conceal his tracks, too: he knew perfectly well there would be an uproar.

They merely were confident they would ride the uproar out, that their loyalists would just circle the wagons, and in some weeks or months the public will have forgotten.

Re:Baseless?

[Vintermann]

A classic trick, count all newspapers as being equally important.

Where I live, there are plenty of newspapers that have a "red" history, pretty much every village had its own labor newspaper back in the day. Many of these exist today, but their circulation is insignificant, and they mostly reprint notices from the huge (right-wing owned) news agencies.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the news can accurately present the news either. Even if the current evidence points to a clear conclusion the legal battles which will follow just simply are not worth it.

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

That particular snippet continues,

The research concluded that of the major 20 news outlets studied "18 scored left of the average U.S. voter, with CBS Evening News, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal, while only the Fox News "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter."

Yes, CBS Evening news, NYTimes and the WSJ are all minor, unimportant papers, right?

Ill note that as a DC Metro area resident, the Washington Post also seems to have some bias towards the left.

Re:Baseless?

[LordLimecat]

My mistake, that was a separate snippet.

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Canada, we have one publicly owned network CBC . It does it's best to follow it's neutral mandate.

Re:Baseless?

[Painted]

Of course robocalls should be discouraged, but is it really illegal to make them?

In this case, completely, 100%, totally illegal. You cannot represent yourself as Elections Canada when in fact, you are not.

Re:Baseless?

[JBaustian]

Okay, then... has Pierre Poutine been arrested?

It's Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they did it in French, too, everything should be okay.

Re:It's Canada

[bidule]

As long as they did it in French, too, everything should be okay.

You know how good them ex-Refomer are at French, they couldn't come up with a better translation than "vote NPD!"

Re:It's Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, the French part of Canada was "safe" from this crap, proved by how pretty much the whole of Quebec voted for the NPD.

Re:It's Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree

Whatever happened in Ohio?

[wisebabo]

I'm surprised to see this kinda thing happening to our neighbors to the north. Compared to the cesspool that is American politics, I thought Canadian politics were squeaky clean. That's why I've always thought it would be a good place to run to (as James Cameron has evidently decided) in case the far right kooks took over.

Speaking of which, what ever happened to the investigations into Diebold and the voting machines in Ohio (and maybe more states)? Wasn't there enough evidence to start a criminal investigation? Or did it just fizzle because nobody cared?

Where's the outrage?

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because the same bastards that control US politics have shifted up into Canada as they have almost completely looted the US.

Now it's our turn.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[choongiri]

There's growing evidence that Canada's Conservatives learned how to do this kind of fraud south of the border - e.g. a growing tangled web of links between them and US firms used by the republicans... http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1140344--conservative-mps-used-top-republican-firm-during-may-election

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[ohnocitizen]

It fizzled. In the meantime, record voter suppression laws have been successfully passed by the far right kooks in a number of states: http://www.aclu.org/maps/2011-voting-rights-under-attack-state-legislatures

2012 will host a bunch of important and close elections, and an even greater portion of the American public won't even be allowed into the polls. Other methods of voter suppression will happen on top of that insidious base.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[turbidostato]

"It fizzled. In the meantime, record voter suppression laws have been successfully passed by the far right kooks in a number of states"

I'm not an expert on internal USA matters, so I won't doubt you are in the truth.

But certainly not because of the provided evidence... which I took the time to read and that basically ends up to: "nine states won't allow to cast votes to badly or un-identified persons". I happen to think that's a good thing.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main difference is that Canadians, as in this situation, are (only) somewhat more willing to stand up to corruption and seek to correct it.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[quantaman]

Actually since you mention it I regularly hear about these kinds of shenanigans or worse during US elections, though it never makes a real splash. I'm actually relieved that the same stuff up here is still able to draw outrage.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Sir_Sri]

That's not really a shock though. Political campaigners only have work once every 2 years in the US, in off years and even off months they go to other english speaking countries and work with ideologically similar parties, and it goes back and forth.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada's politics have been for a very long time. The earliest incident I can clearly recall would be Ad-Scam, where the liberals managed to steal 1/4 $Billion (yes, B-billion) from Canadians. The reason you don't think it happens is because Canadians don't see it as a big deal--the same liberal party with the same leaders, and many of the same members involved in the scam were voted in multiple times since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal

As for a simple voting/power scandal, you can go way back for that. In 1926 the Liberal party abused the Governor General to get into power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Byng_Affair

There's plenty of conservative scandals--I'm only listing Liberal scandals because it seems the posters above have all the Conservative ones covered already.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

2012 will host a bunch of important and close elections, and an even greater portion of the American public won't even be allowed into the polls. Other methods of voter suppression will happen on top of that insidious base.

I love how liberals have some how managed to turn "preventing voter fraud" into "voter suppression." I suppose at the most pedantic level, it's true. By preventing people from fraudulently voting, you are suppressing their vote.

Oh no, you might be required to show a picture ID to vote! Check in your wallet. See that state-issued card with your picture on it? The one you need to drive and buy alcohol? Congratulations! You can vote!

Oh no, you cry, I might not have a driver's license. Except I do because almost everyone does, but theoretically I might not. Well, have no fear! Any valid ID is OK! And every state offers a non-driver's license photo ID.

Whenever I hear people complain about "voter suppressing," all I hear is "if we're not allowed to vote as dead people, we might not win elections!"

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

But certainly not because of the provided evidence... which I took the time to read and that basically ends up to: "nine states won't allow to cast votes to badly or un-identified persons". I happen to think that's a good thing.

The problem with political discourse in the US is that people always have to be on a team and can't think objectively like you just did. The result is that we have the most ridiculous arguments. In this case, we have some small amount of voter fraud... dead people voting, vote buying, etc. An obvious solution is to do a better job with voter identity. Of course, any time you make voting requirements more stringent, you disenfranchise people. And as it happens, the people who have the most trouble with voting requirements are the poor.

Now, reasonable people who don't associate with a team could sit down and talk about where to draw the line such that you have a suitable balance between voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Add partisan politics, and it just becomes a "you hate the poor", "you have a vested interest in voter fraud" argument.

In PA, I think it is a pretty reasonable law - you must show photo ID to vote. If you do not have an ID you can still cast a provisional ballot which will get counted when you bring proof of ID. If you cannot afford a government ID, you can sign an affidavit stating that you are too poor to afford one at any motor vehicle center and they will give you an ID for free. Now, this still has a greater effect on the poor than on the rich - but it's not a terrible balance IMHO. If anything, the failure has been to spend money getting the word out.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[ohnocitizen]

If you don't understand how requiring picture id suppresses voters who have other forms of id, then yeah, you don't get it. Voter Fraud in the US is a myth (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/the-myth-of-voter-fraud.html). What we are left with is populations of people (students, the poor) who typically vote Democrat, and have trouble getting through the hoops Republicans enjoy throwing in their place. So yes, these laws are indeed an assault on voting rights.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[dkleinsc]

Or did it just fizzle because nobody cared?

No, the prosecutors who made sure the investigation fizzled absolutely cared - they cared that they and their buddies didn't get caught breaking the law.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

But certainly not because of the provided evidence... which I took the time to read and that basically ends up to: "nine states won't allow to cast votes to badly or un-identified persons". I happen to think that's a good thing.

Except blacks and Latinos (who tend to vote, on average, for Democrats) are the ones that tend to have "bad" ID papers. Many don't have things like driver licenses (never mind passports).

I'm all for IDing voters, but if you look at the fine print for a lot of the laws passed, it's basically targeting particular demographics (which is uncool IMHO).

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[SpeZek]

Oh no, you might be required to show a picture ID to vote! Check in your wallet. See that state-issued card with your picture on it? The one you need to drive and buy alcohol? Congratulations! You can vote!

Shit, is it behind my bus pass or my food credits card?

Oh no, you cry, I might not have a driver's license. Except I do because almost everyone does, but theoretically I might not. Well, have no fear! Any valid ID is OK! And every state offers a non-driver's license photo ID.

Oh, shit, you mean the state-issued photo ID that costs money (that some folks can't afford, living paycheck to paycheck) and requires one to take the entire day off work (again, that some folks can't afford) to get on a weekday?

Check your privilege.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

2012 will host a bunch of important and close elections, and an even greater portion of the American public won't even be allowed into the polls. Other methods of voter suppression will happen on top of that insidious base.

I love how liberals have some how managed to turn "preventing voter fraud" into "voter suppression." I suppose at the most pedantic level, it's true. By preventing people from fraudulently voting, you are suppressing their vote.

Oh no, you might be required to show a picture ID to vote! Check in your wallet. See that state-issued card with your picture on it? The one you need to drive and buy alcohol? Congratulations! You can vote!

Oh no, you cry, I might not have a driver's license. Except I do because almost everyone does, but theoretically I might not. Well, have no fear! Any valid ID is OK! And every state offers a non-driver's license photo ID.

Whenever I hear people complain about "voter suppressing," all I hear is "if we're not allowed to vote as dead people, we might not win elections!"

A drivers license is something unnecessary in near any US City, and is a privilege and expense, which would hit low wage and minorities harder than suburbans who you can assume by right of passage get their license. In defense of your argument state issued ID cards are accessible and in some states even free. But it does not change the idea of forcing people go jump through hoops to be allowed to vote, and when considered in context with many laws written during and before the civil-rights movement which where directly aimed at voter suppression of minorities. I would have to contend the argument against these laws deserves some serious credence.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

The person you just described:

  I have a paycheck to paycheck job that I take the bus to get to. I use food stamps. I do not have the time nor the 10 to 20 usd to pay for a legal ID to vote but I've managed to get food stamps, a job, cash my paychecks, a bank account(?), get utilities for my place of residence and a bus pass without any sort of id whatsoever.

Your argument...no water does it hold.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[forand]

So it is reasonable to force citizens to pay for a government issued ID to vote? I was under the impression that, as a citizen I had the right to vote and be free from unwarranted search by my government. Requiring me to obtain a government issued ID to express my opinion in a democracy is something that must either be encoded in the constitution or not allowed. Requiring government issued ID without requiring it at birth means you will disenfranchise legitimate voters who, until some law that they can now no longer vote out the representative who passed it made that impossible.

I have no issue with federally issued government ID that is given at birth and somehow actually tied the the individual. However I do not think here is any reasonable way of implementing such an ID and voter fraud (illegitimate voters casting votes) is NOT a problem in the US as many others in this thread have noted.

The only objective that requiring a government issued ID in the US accomplishes is disenfranchising the poor, the young, and the old.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In this case, we have some small amount of voter fraud... dead people voting, vote buying, etc. An obvious solution is to do a better job with voter identity.

In this case we have such a small amount of voter fraud that it is significantly less than the margin of error in the counting process. Given that basic fact, any argument for tightening up access to voting must be seen as disinegenuous.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone that's lived in chicagoland his whole life, I can honestly say there's absolutely nothing party-specific about fraud in politics.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[compro01]

"It fizzled. In the meantime, record voter suppression laws have been successfully passed by the far right kooks in a number of states"

I'm not an expert on internal USA matters, so I won't doubt you are in the truth.

But certainly not because of the provided evidence... which I took the time to read and that basically ends up to: "nine states won't allow to cast votes to badly or un-identified persons". I happen to think that's a good thing.

In and of itself, it's good.

Add up the entire picture, including aspects such as unreasonably restricting what is considered valid ID, adjusting locations of where those IDs can be obtained, and the cost of said IDs, and it looks much less like a good thing.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyMartian]

Being somewhat familiar with the few extreme constitutional crises of the modern Westminster Parliaments, I fail to see how Byng was abused by the Liberals. It is a tradition in Westminster Parliaments that in the case of a hung Parliament (where no party has an absolute majority in the Lower House), the incumbent Prime Minister is given the first chance to form a government. Byng was bound by tradition and by the unwritten aspects of the Canadian constitution to give King his chance if King thought he could do it, but made King agree that if the Government fell, Byng would not dissolve Parliament. Later, when King advised Byng to drop the writ, Byng invoked his reserve powers, refused King's request and King was forced to resign.

A similar thing might have happened in the 2010 UK election. Gordon Brown, as the incumbent Prime Minister, had the first chance to try to make a Government. Brown went to the Queen and resigned instead, in fact much quicker than anyone expected, which was why the Conservatives and LibDems were still negotiating the terms of a possible coalition when news reached them that Brown would not attempt to form another Government. But if Brown had decided to give it a go, the Queen would have felt bound to give him his chance, but likely would have done the same as Lord Byng had done, and made him agree that if he lost the confidence of Parliament, she would not take any advice to dissolve Parliament.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

They haven't shifted up into Canada, so much as certain Canadians are deciding to adopt the underhanded techniques that are routine in US politics. It's not even a hypothetical:

"McBain was working in the party's central war room for the campaign and says Sona contacted him to suggest a campaign of disinformation. Crawford, who worked on the Burke campaign in Guelph, said he overheard a conversation between Sona and another campaign worker about "how the Americans do politics," but didn't think Sona was serious."

That's pretty awful.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, shit, you mean the state-issued photo ID that costs money (that some folks can't afford, living paycheck to paycheck) and requires one to take the entire day off work (again, that some folks can't afford) to get on a weekday?

Except in my very red state, the $10 fee is waived on proof of financial hardship, takes about an hour (not a full day) to get, and all BMV offices are open late (1900 hrs,, IIRC) one weekday, and a half day Saturday. All these changes (except the fee waiver) were made when they added the photo ID voting requirement.

Check your privilege.

Check your connection to reality, where politicians of either party will bend over backward to keep poor urban blacks content, because giving the Rev. Jackson an excuse to show up at a "racism" protest in your capital is political suicide, thus classism is tempered.

It's not to stop the poor (or at least not the urban poor -- the rural poor are less capable of organizing, and the white trash can't call classism "racism" to get more attention, though Mexican farm workers can and do) from voting, it's to stop illegal immigrants (whether poor or lower middle class) from voting. Frankly, I don't have a problem with that; I'm not a mass deportation supporter, but I don't think they should vote.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[cyberchondriac]

Extra points awarded for talking like Yoda, but you forgot the "...hmmmm?"

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holly, shit, so you think then that we should allow people to vote without every identifying them? So that they can vote thousands of times...
Or perhaps that we should let those vote who are too stupid and too unditermined to even spend half a day, in their entire fucking life, to get a simple id?

No thanks, maybe that is a good idea not to let "people" like that vote.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[zippthorne]

Uh..

Do you have any citations of actual evidence? Or, is a single, unsupported sentence in the middle of a NYT editorial considered sufficient to establish the claim that "There is almost no voting fraud in America."

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[ohnocitizen]

You've got it backwards. You can't just say "There's widespread voter fraud, unless you can disprove it! Let's enact some laws restricting who can vote!". That makes as much sense as a creationist saying "Unless you can prove God didn't create the Earth, we are clearly right."

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Burpmaster]

The problem with political discourse in the US is that people always have to be on a team and can't think objectively like you just did.

No, the real problem with political discourse in the US is that too many people think what you think here, and they are too susceptible to confirmation bias. So complete scumbags can get away with enacting a policy for partisan political gain, as long as they accuse the other party's opposition to their policy as being for partisan political gain. By doing so, the provide a narrative that fits your preconceptions about how politics works and brings both sides down to the same level, so it's a stalemate. This cripples independent-minded voters' ability to punish bad behavior and the partisans can then win elections using their loyalists.

A photo ID requirement is not the only voting change the Republicans are pushing for. They've also been removing early voting and the ability to register to vote and vote on the same day. They're also trying to suppress voter registration drives by making regulations that are tough to adhere to perfectly and they are criminalizing violations of the regulations. See here.

It's all voter suppression. If the kind of Republicans we have in government right now learned of a genuine voter fraud problem, they'd first calculate whether it benefits or hurts them before deciding to do anything.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[squiggleslash]

I lived in Britain for the first 25 years of my life, and I never needed photo ID to vote. Despite that, there was never any suggestion, scandal, or otherwise, that the UK voting system was subject to rampant voter fraud.

May I suggest that if you think photo ID is the solution, you're doing it wrong to begin with?

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[squiggleslash]

Yeah, damned those illegal immigrants. I'm sure they're all massing at the borders now, thinking to themselves "As soon as I hop the fence, I'm going to get some pissy farm, construction, or restaurant job, send the money home, and then I'm going to vote in the US presidential election by finding out the name of a registered voter and saying I'm them! Haha!"

WTF?

As I said above, as an ex-Brit, I find the notion photo-ID should be needed to vote utterly absurd. You're doing it wrong.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[prof_robinson]

The absolute idiocy of the Left on this issue is amazing. How can you possibly equate requiring ID to PREVENT fraud, with actual fraud? And using the NYT as "proof" of anything requires quite a leap. First... how would you KNOW there was voter fraud, unless you checked IDs in the first place? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Plus, if you'd read the wikileaks Stratfor files, you'd know the rampant ballot stuffing in 2008 was from the Obama campaign, not the Republicans. Second; while you're so caught up in there being "no proof" of voter fraud, realize that the opposite is also true - there is no evidence that requiring voter ID suppresses turnout, either. Two states in 2008 had voter ID laws in place (SC & GA?), and all of them experienced record minority turnouts for Obama at the polls. VoterID DOES NOT equal voter suppression. But it does mean the DNC has a more difficult time stuffing ballots. That's what this is really about. Obama can't win without cheating.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

MightyYar wrote:

If you cannot afford a government ID, you can sign an affidavit stating that you are too poor to afford one at any motor vehicle center and they will give you an ID for free.

You wrote:

So it is reasonable to force citizens to pay for a government issued ID to vote?

This is exactly the kind of irrational shit we're talking about.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[bsdewhurst]

You mean the James Cameron who has decided that New Zealand might be a better place to live?

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[swalve]

You still have to register to vote, you still have to have an address for them to send the little card that tells you where to vote, and you still have to show up and sign the paper with a signature that matches the registration form. Putting impediments in front of the ballot box, even as seemingly "good" as ID laws, is voter suppression.

Anyway, if your assertion that the ballot boxes are getting stuffed, it doesn't really matter who votes, right? So who cares? Oh wait, the Republicans care, because if a greater percentage of citizens voted, they would be thrown out of office instantly.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[swalve]

In other words, you would make people you don't like jump through extra hoops to vote.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't understand how requiring picture id suppresses voters who have other forms of id, then yeah, you don't get it. Voter Fraud in the US is a myth (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/the-myth-of-voter-fraud.html). What we are left with is populations of people (students, the poor) who typically vote Democrat, and have trouble getting through the hoops Republicans enjoy throwing in their place. So yes, these laws are indeed an assault on voting rights.

Way to go, Einstein.

You just referenced an OPINION piece as FACT.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still have to register to vote, you still have to have an address for them to send the little card that tells you where to vote, and you still have to show up and sign the paper with a signature that matches the registration form. Putting impediments in front of the ballot box, even as seemingly "good" as ID laws, is voter suppression.

Anyway, if your assertion that the ballot boxes are getting stuffed, it doesn't really matter who votes, right? So who cares? Oh wait, the Republicans care, because if a greater percentage of citizens voted, they would be thrown out of office instantly.

Wow. Talk about regurgitating the Kool-Aid.

Can you stop flinging the talking points and actually say WHY it's so bad to prove you are who you say your are when you're exercising one of the most important civil duties that exists?

With, you know, actual EVIDENCE to support your claims? Not links to the NY Times editorial page?

Can you?

Why do I strongly suspect the answer is a resounding, "NO!"

And you probably really think you're smart, don't you? Totally unable to articulate WHY you spout "VOTER SUPPRESSION!!!!!" whenever the thought of requiring proof-of-identity to vote comes up.

But yeah, you're SOOOO smart.

Sure you are.

Given that the International Parliamentary Union has published a guide for elections that states, in part:

4. The Rights and Responsibilities of States

(1) States should take the necessary legislative steps and other measures, in accordance with their constitutional processes, to guarantee the rights and institutional framework for periodic and genuine, free and fair elections, in accordance with their obligations under international law. In particular, States should:

Establish an effective, impartial and non-discriminatory procedure for the registration of voters;
Establish clear criteria for the registration of voters, such as age, citizenship and residence, and ensure that such provisions are applied without distinction of any kind;
Provide for the formation and free functioning of political parties, possibly regulate the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns, ensure the separation of party and State, and establish the conditions for competition in legislative elections on an equitable basis;
Initiate or facilitate national programmes of civic education, to ensure that the population are familiar with election procedures and issues;

(2) In addition, States should take the necessary policy and institutional steps to ensure the progressive achievement and consolidation of democratic goals, including through the establishment of a neutral, impartial or balanced mechanism for the management of elections. In so doing, they should, among other matters:

Ensure that those responsible for the various aspects of the election are trained and act impartially, and that coherent voting procedures are established and made known to the voting public;
Ensure the registration of voters, updating of electoral rolls and balloting procedures, with the assistance of national and international observers as appropriate;
Encourage parties, candidates and the media to accept and adopt a Code of Conduct to govern the election campaign and the polling period;
Ensure the integrity of the ballot through appropriate measures to prevent multiple voting or voting by those not entitled thereto;
Ensure the integrity of the process for counting votes.

How can anyone "[e]nsure the integrity of the ballot through appropriate measures to prevent multiple voting or voting by those not entitled thereto" without positive voter identification?

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're basically arguing from incredulity, "I can't possibly see why illegal immigrants would commit voter fraud!" Well, that's just your lack of imagination or knowledge of US history. Someone intent on committing voter fraud needs warm bodies who are receptive to cash money payments, to impersonate a name long enough to cast a vote. Illegal immigrants (in the past the homeless were used, or busing from other areas) fit the bill perfectly.

Let me be incredulous for a moment: I'm incredulous at the notion that this time-honored method of vote fraud in the USA has completely disappeared in the last 30 years. All these voter fraud laws we have in the USA come from the fact that vote fraud and voter suppression have historically been very common here. In the past it simply wasn't possible to authoritatively verify identity for purposes of elections--now it is, and the fact that people are fighting it is idiotic. There are a small portion of people in the USA that do not retain ID, and these people should be helped to acquire it before strict rules are in place, but it is completely reasonable to expect people to be able to prove their legitimacy to vote considering the importance of voting. Crying that it may exclude some people is cynical and absurd if the lack of exclusion undermines the legitimacy of election results in the first place.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, while Republicans are tilting at windmills attacking voter fraud, a statistically nonexistent problem, they and their corporate media lapdogs ignore ELECTION FRAUD (voting machines et. al.). Election fraud, of course, just miraculously seems to benefit extreme right wingers almost exclusively...

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fag

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

It's all voter suppression. If the kind of Republicans we have in government right now learned of a genuine voter fraud problem, they'd first calculate whether it benefits or hurts them before deciding to do anything.

I agree, but the Democrats do the exact same thing. And because about 2/3 of the voters dutifully follow their team, the political parties can get away with it.

I think we actually agree. I completely agree that the Republicans are pushing so hard for voting reform because it benefits them. I also think, however, that the main reason the Democrats push back is because it hurts them.

Another issue illustrates this in PA at the moment. The Republicans are cutting money and at the same time converting things into block grants. The merits of a grant could be sanely debated, but the cutting of money will without question hurt the poor while we are in a recession. They will (correctly) point out that some of the programs they are de-funding have not been terribly successful. But of COURSE their answer is not to reform the programs or shift the money to programs that HAVE been effective, but to just pull the plug. The Democrats, on the other hand, are going nuts about the cutting of funding to the poor. Nowhere are they attempting to correct the bad programs and they don't even try to address the block grant part of the equation, other than making vague statements about what might happen to the grants in the future.

It all drives me a bit crazy, because if you stripped away the party identity that people have, I don't think most Republicans would want to take vital support away from the poor and I don't think many Democrats would want to keep throwing money at ineffective government programs.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

Given that basic fact, any argument for tightening up access to voting must be seen as disinegenuous.

I'd agree, except that we don't include any kind of statistical analysis in tabulating voting results. We really should have a "tie" category so that elections have to be statistically significant. Until we do something like that, every vote counts - even the crooked ones. Close elections can hinge on just a handful of votes.

Another way to put it is that our system currently tolerates zero error in the process - which is ridiculous.

As to the justification of fighting fraud even though it is a small problem, the whole democratic process hinges on a warm, fuzzy feeling of legitimacy in the electorate. Of course, this goes both ways - disenfranchising a big chunk of poor people is just as dangerous as a bunch of middle class people who feel like the system is full of fraud.

Which gets me back to my original point - you should just have a knee-jerk reaction to any discussion of voting reform, but we do because both political parties have set their own interest ahead of the country's, and the red-team/blue-team mentality of 2/3 of the electorate only enables this.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

So it is reasonable to force citizens to pay for a government issued ID to vote?

I'm not familiar with what they do in other states, but in PA you can get a free ID.

Of course it's not really free since someone has to pay for it, and that is of course you if you pay taxes. I think the justification for making people pay for them individually is that people tend to treat "free" things pretty poorly.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[thereitis]

Sure, why not. The Americans want Canadian oil and they know Harper will give it to them. Keep Harper in power and they get what they want.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[cduffy]

takes about an hour (not a full day) to get

Maybe you're coming from somewhere with good mass transit, or you're so accustomed to having your own motor vehicle that you assume everyone else has one too... but having done the car-free living bit in a city without decent transit (Texas), nothing that requires getting to a government office within business hours is easy, and I'm lucky enough to have flexible work hours (which not everyone does). Heck, getting to my bank is a royal pain, and I can see it from my office -- but there are two major highways between here and there, and the places where they can be safely crossed add miles to the trip.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[tbannist]

I agree, but the Democrats do the exact same thing. And because about 2/3 of the voters dutifully follow their team, the political parties can get away with it.

Actually, they don't. For example, there were somewhere around 250 incidents of voter fraud reported immediately after the 2008 election. 6 of them favored the Democrats.

There are plenty of other charges that can be leveled at the Democrats, but they're just don't believe in vote fraud like the Republicans do. This makes a certain amount of sense, there are a lot more liberals in the Democratic party and liberals are more concerned with fairness than conservatives. Conservatives are more concerned with making sure the "right" people win.

This observation is drawn differences in the basic moral principles of liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to value two moral axioms: the prevention of harm and fairness. Conservatives value tribalism, conformity and strong leadership. Both groups share all 5 values, but the ones listed are the ones they value the most. Tribalism allows conservatives to limit their prevention of harm and fairness to those who belong to the tribe. If the tribe is allowed to be "conservatives" then it should be obvious how that can be twisted to disenfranchise any group that doesn't vote the "right' way.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well things we definitely better before the price of oil got high enough for them to exploit the tar sands (more oil then Saudia Arabia apparently). Since then we are just another captured petro-state with the powers of be in the US and CHINA doing whatever they can to ensure that our government will keep the oil flowing. You know that keystone pipeline? Well there is another one going east west to the pacific ocean. Pretty much nobody in British Columbia wants a pipeline and 200 oil tankers a year plying our coast. Think that will matter? Between 1.5 billion Chinese wanting that oil and billions and billions of dollars to be made by US/Canadian owned oil companies democracy is completely fucked.

This conservative government is the devil and it will not stop until they have tried every trick in the book legal or otherwise to stay in power. Fuck I hate the Conservative party. Just like the Repugs in the US most of the supporters are idiots who buy the party messaging about the evils of gay marriage or the gun registry some other stupid wedge issue then happily vote their interests away along with their children's future civil liberties. The rest of the party are self-interests douchbags who would crew over their mothers for an equity stake. Assholes and idiots one and all. Anytime I try to engage a conservative and try to find the middle ground by stressing that I understand the importance of the sovereignty of the individual and how that relates to the principals of economic liberty they just say something like "What? Um ya we need more jails".

I think I need some medication my blood pressure is rising.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

Look, I don't know how much I can sway you in a message board. I can only hope that you will read your own post after you read this one and change your mind a little bit.

The kind of categorization that you did is exactly what I was talking about. "Democrats" aren't a particular similar group of people. You have hyper-conservative blacks and hispanics together with people who are fighting for a pro-gay agenda. You have pacifists together with union members who believe in violence and intimidation as political tactics. There is a somewhat smaller amount of diversity on the Republican side, but it's still very hard to believe that you can group them all together like you did. People pick political parties because they want to belong to a team - often they are born into the team. This is the very tribalism you decried in your post.

Also, may I suggest that you look into the history of voting fraud. There is and has been no shortage of it in big cities where there aren't any Republicans to be found. Voting fraud is a human tendency, not a Republican or Democratic tendency.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[tbannist]

My point was to inform about recent electoral shenanigans, and to comment about part of what is driving that behaviour.

Also, may I suggest that you look into the history of voting fraud. There is and has been no shortage of it in big cities where there aren't any Republicans to be found. Voting fraud is a human tendency, not a Republican or Democratic tendency.

I sincerely doubt there aren't any Republicans to be found in big cities, however I do agree that vote fraud is a human tendency. However, the current trend is vote fraud is anything but bi-partisan. Personally, I think "us vs. them" mentality pushed by right wing talk radio and Fox News that has overwhelmed the old Republican party establishment is reponsible. The insane right wing fringe that has taken control of the Republican is part of what is driving a massive increase in this behaviour. The right wing fundamentalists believe, literally, that God is on their side and therefore they can do no wrong. If vote fraud is required to win then that's ok because they're just making sure that things come out according to God's plan anyway. Plus the people who don't vote for Republicans are all "lazy or traitors who hate America" so they don't deserve to have a vote anyway. Or at least, that's a rather obvious way for other wise honest conservative people to justify electoral cheating. They fall into the traps of tribalism and conformity. They allow people like Blackwell to get away with obvious vote suppression tactics because despite they supposed disbelief in big government they have an almost pathological need to trust conservative leaders.

Mostly I agree with you, however, I also think the people who are doing it now need to have the boot put down on them no matter what party or affiliation they have. And given the recent history, I think it's misleading to pretend that both of your parties are equally guilty of the crimes. You alienate both Republicans and Democrats when you do so, and neither side will want to confront the issue.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

I sincerely doubt there aren't any Republicans to be found in big cities

In my recent primary in Philly, there were no Republicans on the ballot for certain races. The situation was the same when I lived in NYC. Those are the two biggest cities on the east coast.

Personally, I think "us vs. them" mentality pushed by right wing talk radio and Fox News that has overwhelmed the old Republican party establishment is reponsible.

That's only half of it - you also have MoveOn.org and HuffingtonPost.com, for instance.

If vote fraud is required to win then that's ok because they're just making sure that things come out according to God's plan anyway.

Now you are demonizing people, which is the behavior I was hoping you would reconsider. I know a fair number of people who are all over the whole conservative principles you speak of, but would be horrified at the idea of using voting fraud. They are a pain in the ass for a lot of reasons, but in general honesty is not one of them. In no way does the whole ultra religious thing lead to voting fraud.

Incidentally, the most religious people that I personally know are black Democrats. And yes, they literally believe that God is on their side. And no, they are not out committing voting fraud.

They allow people like Blackwell to get away with obvious vote suppression tactics because despite they supposed disbelief in big government they have an almost pathological need to trust conservative leaders.

Again, Blackwell is not the only player here. People with Republican voter registration were quite literally chased out of Philly voting booths just a few years back. YouTube is full of stuff like this. And while I think the incident was way overblown, we had shenanigans like this very recently. Our Republicans are at it, too. We just don't have as many of those. Note that it doesn't take many people to carry out these tactics. I think the overwhelming majority of members of both parties are honestly trying to do the right thing. The Black Panther incident was a handful of men. The flyers were probably printed and distributed by one or two guys. The incident in the first YouTube video could have been a single poll worker. There is no sense in demonizing the members of a party due to these actions - but you can fault them for defending them.

The Black Panther case is extremely informative from a political standpoint, because while it should be unanimously condemned, Republicans imply that it is typical when it is an anomaly and Democrats deflect and start accusing Republicans of race-baiting and such. Both points of view are completely off-base. A man standing in front of a polling place holding a night stick should absolutely be universally condemned. At the same time, it was an isolated incident and the importance of it should not be used as a political weapon. Where is that point of view reflected in our political discourse?

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[tbannist]

Now you are demonizing people, which is the behavior I was hoping you would reconsider. I know a fair number of people who are all over the whole conservative principles you speak of, but would be horrified at the idea of using voting fraud. They are a pain in the ass for a lot of reasons, but in general honesty is not one of them. In no way does the whole ultra religious thing lead to voting fraud.

I don't think you understand. The point is that for conservatives (in particular) an "us versus them" mentality can lead otherwise honest people to do things that others would (rightly) find unethical. On the other side, liberals can be enticed to do the same things with an appeal that it's "for the greater good". The radical right that has seized control of the Republican party has been engaged in purging the party of anyone who is not ideologically pure enough. I too think the ordinary members want to do the right things, however, it is simple fact that conservatives are more easily lead astray by their leaders. More or less, the Republican party seems to be made up almost entirely of conservatives now. The conservative respect for leadership that allows the Republicans to organise and make the Democrats look like they're herding cats also allows them to be easily led astray.

Again, Blackwell is not the only player here.

Again, everything you posted indicates, at least to me, a false equivalency. On the one hand Republican leaders work to disenfranchise thousands of voters and then one man, not affiliated with the Democrats in any way is trotted out as the counterweight. It's false equivalency and in trying to pretend they represent the same scale and same severity, I think you are either ignorantly or deliberately misleading people.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

not affiliated with the Democrats in any way

I was trying to show that voter fraud is not party-specific. I made no effort whatsoever to find a Democrat to counterbalance your Republican example, and you won't get that kind of argument from me because I don't have any interest in showing how one party is any better or worse than the other. To me, the two political parties have only vague correlations to any actual ideology. The only place they consistently differ is on the so-called "wedge" issues, which at the end of the day are not the important ones for the nation at-large.

More or less, the Republican party seems to be made up almost entirely of conservatives now.

And old conservatives at that. Interestingly, the membership of the Democratic party has become so diverse that the party can barely take a stand on anything or come up with a coherent platform. The result has been more demonizing the opposition than anything else. They had 2 full years with complete control of government, and the only thing of note that they did was to enact a partial reform of healthcare that was implemented in such a way as to give the conservative-dominated Supreme Court the final say. I mean, holy shit, if that isn't proof that they have been blowing sunshine up your ass for the last decade, what else do you need? They kept the Bush tax cuts - in fact, they made no move to tax the rich at all and even extended the cuts themselves. They stuck to the original Bush timeline in Iraq and actually sent even more troops to Afghanistan. Immigration... where's that promised reform?

I'm not criticizing these decisions and in fact I agree with many of them, but they vilified Bush so heavily for 8 years and then as soon as they come into complete control over the legislative and executive branches of government they... dusted off and enacted an old Republican health care plan. Yes, the gays can be a bit more open in the military now - and don't get me wrong, that's great... but that issue was only important to a tiny fraction of our population and really has no effect on the readiness or effectiveness of our armed forces.. And I don't want you think that I'm picking on Democrats here... the first thing Bush did was pass a massive increase to Medicaid benefits. Then this "conservative" ran up our national debt like no one before him.

So anyway, you probably disagree with my analysis, and that's fine. I just don't see much of a difference between the two parties except for their talk, so when you indicate that the members of one party are more likely to do this-or-that, I just have to kind of play the skeptic. I personally register for whatever party dominates the area so that I can vote effectively in the primaries. I dream of a third party that siphons off the fed-up moderates. I'm tired of hearing about how Mitt Romney needs to "court" the evangelicals and how Obama is "alienating" his special interest bases.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[tbannist]

They had 2 full years with complete control of government, and the only thing of note that they did was to enact a partial reform of healthcare that was implemented in such a way as to give the conservative-dominated Supreme Court the final say.

Actually, Obama accomplished quite a bit in his first two years, most of it drown out by the health care controversy. It's not a liberal revolution by any stretch of the imagination, but from what I've heard from presidential historians and the like is that he actually got more done in his first two years than any president in living memory. He inherited a country in desperate straits and has managed to turn things around a fair bit and that's despite the fact that the Republicans have been extraordinarily obstructionist and now oppose everything the Democrats do on principle. The U.S. is even becoming a bizarro land where bills are defeated in the Senate when the vote is 51 for (due to endless Republican filibusters).

I honestly think Obama didn't consider ending the Bush tax cuts to be a priority. He thought he could just let them expire and that would be the end of them. As for health care, Obama implemented the Republican health care plan on the, obviously mistaken, premise that if it was their plan they'd probably support it. The truth is, the Republican party can no longer cooperate with the Democrats on any high profile issue. The power people in the Republican party are media ideologues who can't compromise with "the enemy" for fear of losing their audience to the next crazy firebrand. Talk radio and Fox News are poisoning both Americans and the Republican party. As for sending more troops to Afghanistan that was actually part of Obama's platform. He called it "the good war" during the 2008 campaign. I don't think there wasn't much point in changing the Bush timeline once it was set. The troops were going to be almost entirely out of Iraq 2 years after Obama took office? Why would he open a can of worms to make it one year when he had more pressing issues?

The parties aren't radically different in policy, especially not under Obama. He could have been in the running for the best Republican president ever, if he wasn't black. But there are key differences between the parties in how they operate. The Democrat's strength and weakness is herding cats and for the Republicans it's marching in lock step. The downside is the Democrats have trouble getting stuff done and the Republicans are all too willing to march off a cliff for "glorious leader".

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[MightyYar]

I don't have too much to take issue with in your post, other than I still don't think you have the Republican membership's mindset fairly portrayed. But this got me a chuckle:

Republicans are all too willing to march off a cliff for "glorious leader".

The reason it made me laugh is because in conservative circles, the "left's" infatuation with Obama - especially initially - was often lampooned as disciples following their Christ.

I say you are both right :)

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[hendrikboom]

Yes, there were allegations of billions. But when the matter ws actually subjected to a forensic audit, it turned out that one ad company had billed the government for about a million dollars without performing the contracted advertising. But the Liberal government fell on the allegations, not the reality.

-- hendrik

Well, isn't that interesting.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The Conservatives engage in massive election fraud, while their co-ideologues south of the border, the Republicans, make political hay with completely baseless complaints of widespread voter fraud. If I were a suspicious, conspiracy-minded sort, I might think there was some sort of connection. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." But surely this kind of thing is just a coincidence ... right?

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[chispito]

Stop trying to score political points off this. You should maintain a healthy skepticism of ALL politicians and those who cling to them.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[MightyYar]

That wouldn't help his team.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You should maintain a healthy skepticism of ALL politicians and those who cling to them.

Indeed. And part of that healthy skepticism is recognizing that while all political parties are inherently brutal and corrupt, they are not equally so; some are, in fact, markedly worse than others. The "oh, forget about it, they're all the same" attitude that a lot of people take is intellectual laziness which, if enough people adopt it, paves the road to power for real monsters.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you go blaming 'the other' team consider this. I have lived in the state of NC. I have seen democrats doing the *exact same thing*. I have seen robocalls, gerymandering, fillabusters, etc etc etc. Then turn around and make it legal (after all they make the laws).

This sort of *SHIT* is par for the course. Do not put up with from any party (even your own), I dont.

Also you are falling for a standard divide and conquer method the media has been using for years to drum up ratings. 'Those dirty xyz group look at what they did now'. Do not let them do it to you.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[MightyMartian]

The robocalling scandal certainly takes it to another level, but dirty tricks, even if just defacing opposing candidates' election signs, has gone on for a long time. I worked for a fellow who was a campaign manager and he had stories to tell about harassing phone calls, letting air out of tires, send small squads of hecklers to shout down other candidates at election events. Yes, these are lesser evils than deliberately trying to fool voters directly, but you can see a continuum here. We have a bunch of pumped up people who, for whatever psychological reason, view their candidate or party's success as the most important thing in the world, and thus enter the realm where the ends justify the means.

Quite frankly, I think any card-carrying party member should probably have their head examined. I consider extreme partisanship to be something of a mental disorder. You can kind of forgive it in the young, because if they weren't worshiping at the feet of the party leader, they'd probably be worshiping at the feet of Marilyn Manson or some football superstar. But it's the middle aged guys that get me. You would think that at some point along the road they would have become wise to the fact that parties are fundamentally corrupt creatures, dens of inequity and sin, machines of special interests masquerading as electoral beacons.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[quacking duck]

Quite frankly, I think any card-carrying party member should probably have their head examined. I consider extreme partisanship to be something of a mental disorder. You can kind of forgive it in the young, because if they weren't worshiping at the feet of the party leader, they'd probably be worshiping at the feet of Marilyn Manson or some football superstar. But it's the middle aged guys that get me. You would think that at some point along the road they would have become wise to the fact that parties are fundamentally corrupt creatures, dens of inequity and sin, machines of special interests masquerading as electoral beacons.

Given the rising numbers of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians and mega churches, and rejection of science and rational thinking at state levels, why is it at all surprising that today's middle-aged population aren't wising up to the corruption but instead lean toward extreme partisanship?

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[M. Baranczak]

The "oh, forget about it, they're all the same" attitude that a lot of people take is intellectual laziness which, if enough people adopt it, paves the road to power for real monsters.

Too many people have forgotten this. Objectivity means that you examine the facts without prejudice; it doesn't mean that you automatically give equal weight to both sides of an argument. When two people are taking two incompatible positions, chances are very good that one of them is more wrong than the other.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[epine]

You should maintain a healthy skepticism of ALL politicians and those who cling to them.

I know several highways where the average speed of traffic is well above the posted speed limit, to the degree where anyone at or below the speed limit is flirting with hazard. We're all lawless crooks if you choose to parse it that way. The fact of the matter is that some of those lawless crooks flouting the posted speed limit also drive like assholes.

Skepticism is a lousy substitute for discrimination.

I suspect many of the people who pull out the blanket statement on politicians are the same people who need cue cards and a teleprompter to pronounce "compromise" a week after the honeymoon glow subsides. Compromise is an ugly business, in marriage or politics.

Sheldon is so incapable of compromise, the show didn't even assign him a sexual orientation.

The IP address in question...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://i.imgur.com/v5ck3.jpg

99.225.28.34

Resident of Guelph here, and absolutely in tears about Pierre of "Pierre's Poutine" being linked to the scandal. /Didn't get robocalled

Conservatives of the World, Unite!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least we know that conversatives everywhere employ the same methods...

Re:Conservatives of the World, Unite!

[Anonymous Coward]

And they get together to share the methods, in a UNION no less!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democrat_Union

Re:Thousands?

[Em Adespoton]

"comparison of call records found a perfect match between the illegal calls, and records of non-supporters in the Conservative Party's CIMS voter tracking database, as well as evidence access logs may have been tampered with"

While I think the robocall scandal itself may be a bit overblown, the digging into it is finding a surprising number of facts that don't line up with a clean election campaign. So if you take the "false claims of supression" line, please come up with a reason that someone with access to the CP's CMS would call all those people to get them to call in. Since the logs have been tampered with, it's possible that someone hacked in, grabbed the data and attempted to frame them, but that seems even more of an unfounded conspiracy theory than the CPs intentionally conducting election fraud in the first place.

In any case, there's enough evidence pointing to wrongdoing on someone's part -- now they just have to figure out who was responsible, and what their intent was -- and who was behind them.

How about that!

[WindBourne]

Canada's conservatives are becoming a lot more like American republicans. Now, they simply need to share information to see how to cheat at it better.

Re:How about that!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just upset because the Democrats have to bribe actually people to do the voting, with union payoffs, cigarettes, food, etc. It's much less efficient that way.

Re:How about that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the Democrats have to deliver. The Republicans can pretend to promise!

Re:How about that!

[rogueippacket]

I'm not so certain anymore - the Conservative Party has been slowly drifting to centre. If you need proof, go and check out the Wild Rose party of Alberta. They make the Conservative Party (provincial and federal) look like the demigods of democracy and fair-play. The frightening bit is 30% of the province wanted to elect them, almost out of nowhere. The mast majority of the province actually voted Conservative just to keep them out.

Re:How about that!

[Bill Dimm]

...have to bribe actually people to do the voting, with union payoffs, cigarettes, food, etc.

So inefficient. In Philly they literally just hand out cash for votes

Re:How about that!

[Anonymous Coward]

the Conservative Party has been slowly drifting to centre. If you need proof, go and check out the Wild Rose party of Alberta

Firstly, the Conservative Party of Alberta is not the same as the Conservative Party of Canada. In Canada, provincial political parties have not been affiliated with federal parties in any way (other than name) for at least forty years.

Secondly, that in Alberta, the most politically conservative of any Canadian province or territory, there is a relatively new political party (the Wild Rose Party) that is even more conservative/right wing than the ruling Alberta Conservative party, is not proof of any kind that the federal Conservative party (or any other provincial Conservative party) is becoming more centrist.

In fact, now that Harper has a majority government, the federal Conservative party is showing itself to be even more right wing than previously.

Re:How about that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? The Reform/Canadian Alliance/Conservative party at the federal level is already the "Wild Rose Party". The Conservative Party in Alberta is more like the federal Progressive Conservatives, who are all but extinct. The federal Conservatives masquerade as more "centre" politicians by not usually bringing up touchy issues, but you only need to look at the profoundly undemocratic practice of cramming a dozen changes to other laws into the budget implementation bill to realize that they don't care what anybody else in the country thinks. Those should have been separately-debated bills, but they don't care about debate. They'll have the finance committee evaluate them, which is stupid and wrong. They'll also whip any party members into line who disagree (because the budget bill has to pass or the government will fall). Hell, I'm surprised they didn't stuff the DMCA-style copyright bill in there too.

These people are not interested in dissent or rational discussion. They just want to ram the legislation through to meet their goals by any means necessary. This is not the behaviour of a "centre" political party.

Re:How about that!

[shutdown -p now]

Curiously enough, even the most extreme Canadian conservatives are still left of U.S. Republicans. Case in point: the Alberta Wildrose alliance, which is to the right even of the federal Conservative party; and yet, from their program:

"Albertans do not want a U.S.-style health care system that leaves millions uninsured. It is critical that any proposed health reforms for our province comply with the five key principles of the Canada Health Act – namely that health insurance coverage is publicly administered, comprehensive in scope, universal, portable among provinces and accessible."

This is the kind of thing that people have in mind when they say that U.S. politics are extremely biased towards right wing in general.

Re:How about that!

[Zanterian]

Canadian Politicians know most Canadians would never vote for anyone threatening their healthcare.However, I think there is more to this, and it's about the Canada Health Act itself:

The Canada Health Act is all about money.
Failure to comply with it means that the federal Government will not give any money out to the Provincial Health Authority.
Canada Health act on Wikipedia

PURPOSE
Marginal note:Purpose of this Act
4. The purpose of this Act is to establish criteria and conditions in respect of insured health services and extended health care services provided under provincial law that must be met before a full cash contribution may be made.

Canada Health Act

tl;dr
I think that The Alberta Wildrose Alliance stance on Healthcare is more because they are catering to a Canadian population and making sure they continue receiving Federal Funds rather than whether they lean Left or Right.

Re:How about that!

[shutdown -p now]

You're probably right, but nonetheless the way they're spinning it to their voter base is that public healthcare is important. Which means that said voter base mostly agrees, despite being conservative.

Re:How about that!

[tbannist]

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but the Wild Rose party of Alberta is run and backed by the same people as the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). The Progressive Conservative (PC) party was always a right of center party. The Reform party, which eventually became the CPC was formed by the people who thought the federal PC party was becoming too "left wing". Same thing for the Wild Rose party, they used to be the right fringe of the provincial PC party.

fall guy.

[Dzimas]

The national party will simply claim that the robocalls were the work of a rogue campaign employee in a single riding who misused the organization's confidential database. One guy is going to get hung out to dry and they'll let time cloud the collective memory.

Re:fall guy.

[Anonymous Coward]

They already did this months ago, to a volunteer working in the same Guelph riding who tried to physically take the poll box from a voting station. He's behind it all, I tells ya!

Yes, thousands.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few hundred investigations that are ongoing (250 across 200 ridings). According to the evidence gathered so far, there were thousands of calls made with a complaint rate of about 1%. Elections Canada received thousands of letters expressing concern about vote fraud, but many of them did not claim that they were personally defrauded.

Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

We have the second-largest province by population basically run by the Mafia, and the RCMP wanting to keep the evidence away from an official inquiry.

While we have students rioting in the streets because the government refuses to sit down and talk, we fine out the Education Minister took Mafia money.

The mob skims 5% off the top of all large construction projects, decides who will be "allowed" to bid, and how the contracts will be divied up. This has been going on for at least 40 years.

And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Prune]

You mean the students of Quebec rioting due to minor tuition increase when they already have, by far, the lowest tuition in the country?

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

The problem is more complicated than you make it appear. Quebec has one of the lowest per-capita incomes in all of continental North America - and that's before you add the highest taxes in the world.

So a level of tuition fees that would be affordable anywhere else is going to have a severe impact, because affordability is related directly to after-tax income.

It's true that much of this damage is self-inflicted - Montreal used to be the head-office capital of Canada, but 50 years of language laws (started in 1969, before the Parti Quebecois came to power in the '70s), the resulting migration of almost a million people from Quebec to the Rest of Canada in just a few short years, and the willingness of politicians of all political stripes to play the game and suck up to Quebec Nationalists when votes are at stake are also part of the problem.

It's in the country's best interest that Quebecers get as much education as possible, not just for the same reasonas as anyone else, but also because a more educated workforce is more likely to have to look elsewhere (the rest of Canada) for jobs because they won't be able to use their skills at home.

The dissatisfaction this generates towards the nationalistic/separatist policies of Quebec among French-Quebecers is the REAL reason that the Quebec government doesn't want to increase the level of education - the less education, the less likely you are to leave the province, so the more likely you are to be vulnerable to exploitation by both government and industry (those highest taxes in the world and those lowest after-tax wages in North America).

It's also why the Quebec government made it illegal for French-Quebecers to send their kids to English schools - it reduces the ability of people to look outside the province for jobs, creating a captive labour pool. We saw this in the nurse's strike in the '90s - the nurses had the backing of the public, but the government knew that the majority of nurses, not being able to pass proficiency tests in English to work in another province or another country, would have to settle for crappy work conditions and lower wages than their more mobile counterparts in other provinces.

Historically, this is not new. The US started it the better part of a century ago; US-funded Quebec industries were notorious for treating the french as cheap labour worthy only of exploitation. The only difference is, with a policy of "maitre chez nous" ("master of our house"), it's the political elite (at the rovincial level in Quebec and the Liberal, Conservative, and NDP politicians at the federal level) who do the exploiting now, always saying stuff that appeases enough of the nationalist/separatist faction to get votes, while at the same time giving them legitimacy.

Whether it was Mulroney, Chretien, or Harper, none of them were willing to engage in realpolitik and call the Quebec provincial and Montreal municipal governments corrupt, because they always wanted enough of those "soft nationalist" votes to hold onto power (and because they too were corrupted).

The solution is complicated.

First, Canadians are going to have to reject any more willingness to compromise with anyone who wants to break up the country. Second, get rid of all the hypenated-Canadian talk. We're all just Canadians, not French-Canadians, English-Canadians, Whatever-Canadians. Labels are used by manipulative scoundrels of all political stripes to divide people, highlighting the unimportant differences rather than the important commonality. In other words, kill off multi-culturalism. Multi-culturalism legitimized Quebec nationalism.

Second, the whole country needs to realize that bilingualism is a "good thing." Not only does it help delay the onset of Alzheimers by exercising the brain more, it also helps the country be more competitive internationally, and communicate better internally. Quebec would have to go from being officially french to officially bilingual, same as New Brunswick. Other provinces sh

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned english by watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate SG-1 and similar shows.

And my shields up! english is no worst than most dilithium crystals americans I chat with on the holodeck online games.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Trepidity]

One reason students in Quebec are more angry about it is that they typically pay their own tuition, for a mixture of economic/cultural/historical reasons. In the rest of Canada it's more common (as in the U.S.) for parents to pay substantial parts of tuition, so tuition hikes don't affect students as directly.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Anonymous Coward]

They're rioting because they believe the money they have to pay is badly invested and that the raise is unnecessary. For all they care the cost should be 0, no one should be prevented from a fine education. The best of them are trying to reorganize the budget to make it unnecessary to have a raise. On the other hand, a bunch of idiots are plugging their ears and acting like the budget is all fine and that students should shut up and pay (most of them aren't educated enough to understand the issues, which doesn't help).

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[mrclevesque]

No, it's a major tuition increase. Minor increases to keep up with inflation have been happening each year for over 30 years but they have been called administration fee increases.

And why should tuition inceases be accepted in one place because they are accepted in others.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[ceoyoyo]

You can't judge the whole country by Quebec. Quebec is very, very special.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

As I took paints to point out, the Federal political scene has been repleat with politicians from all political stripes pandering to the "soft nationalist/separatist" Quebec vote.

At some point, the voters in the rest of the country has to accept some responsibility for the mess because they supported this sort of "knife-at-the-throat" cowardice tactics by voting for it.

The latest example is Tom Mulcair of the NDP - another in the long line of politicians who panders to the soft separatist vote by continually making reference to the "Quebec Nation". He's one of those believers in assymetrical federalism - and a generation of that sort of thinking is a big part of what is tearing the country apart.

But lest you think I'm only slagging the NDP, I blame all the current politicians. Trudeau had it right. "Just watch me!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Quebec didn't happen in isolation. There's been ass-hattery and bigotry towards the french from the rest of the country for a long time, and there's been pandering to subversives for political gain. You don't build a country on that sort of crap.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Anonymous Coward]

According to all the French citizens I know, there aren't any Canadians that can speak passable French.

Bada-bing. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[swalve]

Man, that sounds like it's right out of "DaVinci's Inquest".

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

According to all the French citizens I know, there aren't any Canadians that can speak passable French.

The majority of people in the world who speak French aren't French citizens.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

The "extra fees", the "activity fees", the "student fees", the "school supply fees" at all levels of education, these are all stuff that somehow "doesn't count" - but those school supply fees sure scare the heck out of many parents right before school starts for the yeear - especially since they come at the same time as having to buy new school clothes, etc.

Too many people don't seem to understand that we have huge pockets of poverty in Quebec, too often hidden poverty, from the combination of lower wages than elsewhere, and very much higher taxes (for example, the lowest bracket of the provincial income tax rate is more than 3x higher than neighboring Ontario's lowest rate, and it kicks in earlier).

It doesn't help that decades of cronyism in public service jobs has also created a bureaucracy that is more intent on preserving its own jobs than on delivering services to the general public, and that corruption has led to things like "bio-degradable asphalt" - roads that need re-paving mere months after they've been paved.

There's also the hidden health problem. Quebec's offical rate of people with one or more handicaps is the lowest in Canada, which doesn't make sense because Quebec has one of the most rapidly aging populations. The reality is that many people (statistically, at least 3% of the population) have already fallen through the cracks, and just aren't counted, left to deal with their disabilities on their own without any support, which just compounds the problem.

And then we have the totally ludicrous attitude of current premier Jean Charest - the most two-faced politician in Canadian history (ask any reporter - they're familiar with his saying one thing to one group, then an hour later the exact opposite to another group). It's ridiculous that it took 12 weeks of protests to even agree to sit down and talk, because he didn't want to look weak.

The only thing that is more ridiculous is that he has fiddled while the economy self-destructed. Quebec needs to gain 75,000 jobs a year to keep up with population growth - for the last 2 years, it has instead lost an average of 1,000 jobs a week, and those jobs are never coming back. They are gone for good.

Instead, he goes on and on about his stupid "Plan Nord" that will "create or stabilize up to 20,000 jobs" - thinking that we're too stupid to realize that many of these jobs (such as transport of raw materials) will not be local, and that exporting raw materials instead of transforming them into products is basically exporting jobs while leaving behind the pollution and other environmental damage, and a province depleted of resources when it finally needs them for its own population.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

There's more ... a lot more. For example, Canadian banks are quite willing to allow companies whose charters have lapsed (and that no longer have any legal status) to open up bank accounts. So, just find a defunct company, pay the fees to "revive" it for a year so you can get your hands on a valid charter without too many questions, then let it lapse at the end of the year. Now, you have the perfect shell company for whatever fraud you want to perpetrate - money-laundering, check-kiting, fake invoices, you name it.

This was supposed to have been fixed after the Ateliers Hall scam a couple of decades ago, but when I started investigating, I found that zombie companies can still do banking in Canada.

When confronted with hard evidence (cheques written against a zombie company account), the Bank of Montreal promised to get back to me, but never did. Not ONE of Canada's top banks did, because they're all scared that the minute they admit it publicly, they'll be liable for lawsuits from anyone who receives a bogus cheque. Ongoing flaws such as this are part of why the Royal Bank of Canada settled with investors who were scammed out of $50 million by Earl Jones - "Canada, the best banking system in the world" is no stranger to corruption.

... which reminds me - since this is one of the ways that bribe money is laundered and/or paid, I need to send a link to the Charboneau Commission - it would be no big deal to require every bank to verify, on an annual basis, that the corporate charter of each of their customers is still valid - all it requires is a script to scrape the government's web site, and a list of companies for each branch. It would also weed out crooks using a duplicate of an official charter by comparing corporate officer info with the official list. Hopefully, the judge will have more luck getting answers out of them than I did.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the students of Quebec rioting due to minor tuition increase when they already have, by far, the lowest tuition in the country?

I hardly call a 75% hike "minor".

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post was good, great in fact, but as a Quebecer I'll point out one issue with this.

Quebec would have to go from being officially french to officially bilingual, same as New Brunswick. Other provinces should be encouraged to do the same, going from officially English to both.

Quebec is never going to go officially bilingual. It's a matter of pride, and of self-identity. It's not rational, but it's us. Consider that most Quebecers feel no great love or attachment towards Canada, any motion toward Anglicization is an attack on our self-identity by outsiders. The rest of the country going from English to both can't be done either; years of "Quebec pandering" have poisoned the rest of Canada against the idea of giving us anything more, and I agree. If it IS done, it'll be only on paper. There's no reason for anyone in the west to talk French.

Canada is made of two nations who barely tolerate each other.

Honestly, at this point, separation is looking like a better and better idea, especially with Lord Herpes in Ottawa.

Re:Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

I think you're wrong, and that people are better than that. Self-identity is more than language. Also, the "Quebecers feel no great love or attachment towards Canada" is due to politicians on both sides egging on the populace rather than seeking to bring people together.

The "Quebec pandering" is equally poisonous, to both sides. How about rather than "against the idea of giving us more", the queston was rephrased as "what can we to to grow the pie for everyone involved?" For example, the resource-rich provinces are losing opportunities for a more robust economy by exporting the raw materials rather than finding ways to promote more manufacturing inside the country as a whole, which would give them more stable markets.

To the extent that free trade has resulted in a race to the bottom, and we're seeing more and more jobs exported (the diesel plant in Ontario, the Aveos jobs across the country), the provinces need to work together to figure out how best to exploit the existing loopholes in NAFTA (and there are a few) to keep our overlords from selling us out completely. They won't care what happens 25 years from now - they've got theirs, and they'll use their advantages to isolate themselves from any problems, like they do now.

Case in point - like one in 7 Canadians, I don't have a family doctor, and I've permanently lost part of the vision in one eye - a loss that could have been prevented with better monitoring. The docs say it will only get worse as time goes on. Without a family doctor to follow everything, and to make referrals as necessary, I'm royally scr*wed. You can be darned sure our overlords don't have the same problems with access to a family doctor.

So instead, they spend $25 billion on fighter jets that don't even meet our own needs while lying about the price, are overkill for most situations as well as too expensive to operate, and will be easy enough to be totally overwhelmed by any potential enemy just sending in a large enough wave of comparatively cruise drones, knowing that some will get through.

Re:Thousands?

[choongiri]

Yes, thousands. In Guelph alone, there were at least 7,670 - EC knows this from records they were able to subpoena from RackNine - http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Fraudulent+robocalls+absolutely+outrageous+Mayrand/6383004/story.html - those same records matched the CPC's CIMS database exactly. Now that's just the ones that "pierre poutine" set up - it's looking increasingly likely he was a rogue, but there was an underlying and much more pervasive and carefully executed national strategy - http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/24/pol-election-calls-poll.html - If pierre poutine hadn't gone and blown it by going overboard, we might never have found out.

Re:Thousands?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Most of the claims can't be proven - who goes around recording every phone call they get? It was just luck that someone got it on tape.

For every call that was proven to date, there were probably plenty more that were either forgotten about at the time, missed, ignored, or acted upon and the people figured "why report it - it won't change anything with this gang of crooks."

Re:Thousands?

[MightyMartian]

Could you provide a link to said report because the last official word on the extent of the robocalls said dozens of tidings were involved and what you're saying would mean Elections Canada just repudiated everything it had said for months.

typical

[Titan1080]

'The Conservative Party still maintains their innocence...' One thing repubs are great at, denying ironclad evidence.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad Canada is able to confront their voting manipulation, unlike Russia and the USA.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaking news: Politicians are lying sacks of shit! Film at Eleven!!!!111111111111111eleventyone

Re:Suppress Away

[Cruciform]

Maybe you should pay attention before commenting.
The calls notified voters that the polling stations had moved. This led to people missing the opportunity to vote because the actual stations were closed by the time the deception was discovered.

Slip of the tongue

[bidule]

Considering how often our PM said we were getting an erection, I'm not surprised we got the shaft.

Meanwhile at the Globe and Mail

[rueger]

Watch as the "mainstream media" twists itself into knots trying to avoid stating what everyone knows: The Tories broke the law, and arguably stole at a least a couple of seats. And given the penchant for micromanaging there's no way the Prime Minister didn't know about it.

Re:Meanwhile at the Globe and Mail

[gagol]

Instightful +1, too bad I have no points left.

Re:Meanwhile at the Globe and Mail

[Anonymous Coward]

All the evidence described here can easily be ascribed to one, or if necessary a tiny group, of rogue party operatives.

It's a smoking gun, sure, but it's not in the hand of the party as a whole. Just one or two guys.

Re:Meanwhile at the Globe and Mail

[alexo]

All the evidence described here can easily be ascribed to one, or if necessary a tiny group, of rogue party operatives.

It's a smoking gun, sure, but it's not in the hand of the party as a whole. Just one or two guys.

I have a nagging suspicion that if those "one or two guys" were facing a REAL punishment for their crime (say, 20 years without parole), they would miraculously come up with evidence that those actions were authorized (perhaps even ordered) by people up in the food chain.

What's even worse

[Hentes]

What really surprised me is that the conservatives don't even try to hide that they are compiling a database of their supporters and rejecters. This goes against the very idea of secret ballot voting, and in most civilised countries is at least theoretically illegal.

Re:What's even worse

[MightyMartian]

Actually most political parties in the Western world compile voter lists, and since, curiously enough, all these laws out there banning telemarketing explicitly give political parties an out, they've nicely made sure it isn't illegal.

Profiling voters is an extraordinarily important aspect of modern political campaigning at the ground level.

Re:What's even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, flame me to a crisp, but here's why -- the conservative ideology is elitist. By that I mean they see democracy as damage to route around. Democracy and voters are held in contempt, seen as something that needs to be managed. It's an ends justifies the means philosophy. Democracy is a game to be played with sharp dealing, not a crucial institution to be defended.

That's in no way to say all leftish politicians are inherently honest, or that all politically conservative people are inherently against democracy. It's a generalization that is useful for understanding some basic and strong underlying currents, and like all generalizations it's about as delicate as oven mitts in use.

But that's why the Canadian Conservatives and their supporters would pull that shit without even realizing they should at least /act/ embarrassed about it until far too late.

Re:What's even worse

[Hentes]

Voter lists and supporter databases are two different things. Yes, political parties can legally use voter lists for telemarketing/snailmail spamming, but that's fundamentally different from making a list of friends and enemies.

"Want to get a job in the public sector? Sorry, our database shows that you didn't support the currently ruling party last election."

Re:What's even worse

[MightyMartian]

Is it? It strikes me that if you have a list of voter affiliations, then you automatically have a list that could be regarded by those who suffer from the partisanship disease as a list of friends and enemies.

I'm not saying CIMS, or any such database (and most political parties with any resources in most democratic countries have them), is compiled for the purpose of identifying your enemies. It has uses such as projecting electoral results, finding the demographics in question to determine how to tailor the message, in some cases being able to tell what voters not to bother with at all, and so on. There are lots of what one might consider legitimate uses for such lists, but at the end of the day, if you are sufficiently bloody minded, that list can be turned on its head and used, as the cliche goes, for evil.

This is why I pretty much refuse to answer any question on my political leanings to strangers on the phone; whether they be pollsters or political parties (and honestly, with this sort of conduct going on, I can well imagine that campaign workers and hired called centers are likely being hired to impersonate pollsters as well). How I will vote is no one's business; not a political party's, not a pollsters, not even my wife's.

Re:What's even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that is allowed. But let them try. The possibility of something nefarious is one of the reasons I've never told any party representative they can "count on my support". Maybe they can guess what party I might vote for, but judging by the fact that all three main party candidates usually show up at my door around election time, I don't think they know.

Re:What's even worse

[Hentes]

When you mentioned voter lists, I assumed that you meant a list of registered voters, which is legal to collect and in some places even made public. I have doubts, however, regarding the legality of voter affiliation lists. Of course it also depends on the methods that are used to collect them, but in most cases it would violate privacy and democratic voting. Sure, there are good uses for it, but the risks far outweight the possible advantages.

Re:What's even worse

[mdielmann]

What really surprised me is that the conservatives don't even try to hide that they are compiling a database of their supporters and rejecters. This goes against the very idea of secret ballot voting, and in most civilised countries is at least theoretically illegal.

The ballot is secret. If they call you, ask who you're voting for, and you tell them, the secret is out. Just like....any other time you tell other people about a secret...

It's neither illegal nor unusual for various parties to have these lists. A good test of whether a party is big enough to be a concern is if they have the resources to compile these lists.

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[ATMAvatar]

Perhaps, but I've yet to see news of such a conspiracy from the liberal side. It is healthy to treat both sides with a fair amount of skepticism, but don't let the news of one side openly committing fraud turn into a belief that the other is automatically guilty of the same.

Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[History's Coming To]

Right-wingers tend to exhibit much stronger religious fervour than moderates or left wingers. And as "doing gods work" trumps national laws they're more likely to break them. It's much the same situation as pre-reformation Europe, national leaders are treating the laws of their country as secondary to whatever they think god is telling them to do. Which means we're due another reformation, like it or not, and a whole bunch more religion based violence and suppression. Woop-de-doo.

Are you a man or a sheep?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are robocalls mind control vectors? No. You are free to evaluate the information and make your own choice. It's no different than TV advertising, and probably much less effective.

Does Anybody Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

when the conservative party had a minority gov. and got a vote of non-confidence...

Make the penalties REALLY severe

[wisebabo]

I'd like to think that the solution to this sort of thing (voting fraud) could be effectively combatted by making the penalties really severe, like a multi-decade stay in prison. I feel that the consequences are serious enough, after all the BASIC premise of our DEMOCRACY is at stake; one person one vote. I mean how many nations do we despise, condemn or even sanction for not allowing this basic right regardless of how much it has been perverted or corrupted by practices like buying votes or dirty politics. Even when "the people" make stupid mistakes REPEATEDLY (Bush 2000, 2004), we allow them that right.

So denying that right should be treated very very seriously. If, in fact, the criminal act was carried out by a single or few individuals then fine, a long prison term should discourage others. Otherwise, in the best of worlds, a plea bargain will be made in which they'll finger the real perpetrators; the big fish who are doing this systematically and on a large scale. THEY should be prosecuted and sent to prison for a long long time.

Unfortunately the reason why I said "in the best of worlds" is because some of these individuals may be motivated by a higher calling (and not just by the reward of public office or money). If they truly believe that what they are doing serves some sort of meta-physical goal, their beliefs may cause them to act without fear of earthly punishments. Suicide bombers, to take an extreme example, are unlikely to be dissuaded by even the death penalty. This is just another way in which extremism destroys what most people would call civilization and would return us to the pious but desperately impoverished middle ages.

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[Green Salad]

Please mod parent up!

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[Anonymous Coward]

Does not work.

If you make the penalties severe, the only thing that will happen that courts will be hesitant to enforce the statute.

(I know it's an anti-theme to Americans, but then the USA is itself turning into a police state itself, one example is the Austrian law making all kinds of Nazism related stuff illegal. For 5 decades the law was utterly severe, by local standards, somewhere between armed robbery and murder when it comes to the penalty. For 5 decades it was practically dead law. Then the penalties was lowered, and voila, the Austrian right started collecting rap sheets and jail vacations.)

What experience shows that you can only control "bad behavior" if you make the "behavior" in acceptable to the general public.

Vote fraud is probably illegal already. A Crown Attorney that would be motivated by a public outcry would certainly be able to find something to stick to the perps. One can argue that better laws might make that easier and better, but no matter what the law says, if the Crown Attorney kills the case it's irrelevant. (See certain cases where law enforcement or the D.A. decide not to press charges, it really does not matter if what you did is illegal.)

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly, Bush actually got less votes than Gore in 2000, he just managed to get more electoral votes

Although he received 543,895 fewer individual votes than Gore nationwide, Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266.[82]

82. ^ "2000 Official General Election Presidential Results". Federal Election Commission. December 2001. Retrieved September 1, 2008.

- scraped from Wikipedia

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[MightyMartian]

In this regard, I think what will happen is that Elections Canada will get broader investigative and prosecutorial powers. The opposition parties are clamoring for it, and as it becomes clearer that CIMS was accessed specifically for the purpose of interfering with the election, the Conservatives will feel forced to bend in that direction. I have to wonder if, somewhere in a dark dark room at each of the opposition parties' HQs, there isn't some committee of strategists groaning that giving EC this much power will cost them all in the long run.

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[Anonymous Coward]

The most important factor in deterrant is convincing the subject that they will be caught, with near-absolute certainty.

We are attempting to convince a sociopathic mind (a mind that is eager to win at any cost, including cheating) that they should not cheat.
Sociopaths do not experience fear. To them, a harsh punishment is the just reward for those stupid and/or unlucky enough to be caught.
However, a sociopath is adept at making self-interested calculations like "Can I get away with this?"
If the answer is no, they will not risk themselves. They will find another way to cheat, or cheat somewhere else.

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[shentino]

Just make election fraud an automatic felony.

And make a law that convicted felons aren't allowed to participate in politics.

We're already happy enough to take away their right to vote, so why not just bar them from office or campaign work as well?

Re:Make the penalties REALLY severe

[Lando]

How are you going to make the penalties really severe? Isn't the current standard that they get punished by serving in office and making the laws? Why would they want to make a law that would harm themselves?

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? The more left wing you are, the harder you have to work: you work for everyone rather than yourself, and you do not accept making a living from investing capital or renting out land.

The whole point in capitalism is that you reduce your workload by only having to think of yourself and by finding ways of making money "work" for you. I'm not judging whether that's good or bad, but it's a darn sight more lazy than socialism.

Re:Suppress Away

[Fwipp]

+1 Informative, because people seem to be unaware of this.

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[Rockoon]

Where have you been? Fucking mars?

I found those in about 5 seconds with google. Thats 100% first page results. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE? Completely fucking blind much? We've got in there convictions, tens of thousands of out-of-state residents voting, and so on? What the fuck?

Re:Suppress Away

[MightyMartian]

Some of these calls apparently claimed they were from Elections Canada, and the law is not written that the only way this is illegal is if you pose as an Elections Canada representative, but any attempt to prevent a voter from exercising their right is illegal.

Conservatives more or less the same everywhere.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Fairness and truth don't matter. Like all sociopaths, they feel above the rules. All that matters is winning. Florida in 2000. Canada. It's all the same.

Re:Conservatives more or less the same everywhere.

[prof_robinson]

...and like most libs, you live in your own fantasy world. There is a website that contains all the ballots from 2000 and you can sort them by whatever standards you desire. You will find that Gore won the state by only a dozen or so votes... but NONE of them were in the counties he wanted to recount. Now that hindsight is 20/20, the only way Gore could've won Florida in 2000 would have been to ask for a state-wide hand recount with open standards at the outset. Since he was never going to do that, and in fact tried to stop the certification of the election - the only way he would've gotten that recount - Gore was doomed. You could certainly say Bush didn't "win" Florida, but you can't say he "stole it". What you can say, with some accuracy, is that Gore lost Florida. He has no one to blame but himself. But you on the Left have turned Florida 2000 into a bizarre political myth... which is odd, considering the evidence I cited is readily available to anyone.

Re:Conservatives more or less the same everywhere.

[purpledinoz]

And you proved his point. You don't care who got more votes, but just that Bush won. If you were really for democracy, wouldn't you be outraged that someone won without getting the most votes? You only care that the Republicans won, no matter whether it was democratic or not.

Heh Heh Heh

[SeaFox]

Now what? Trying to claim that IP addresses are not enough evidence to identify someone will only help the people being targeting by the recording/movie industry for file sharing.

IP address is people?

[BigMike]

Wait a minute - I thought we were all agreed that an IP address is not a person ...

http://torrentfreak.com/judge-an-ip-address-doesnt-identify-a-person-120503/

Assad regime claims innocence too

[kawabago]

I think I'd believe the Syrians first.

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[SnEptUne]

I think they are just really good at pretending to be relgious to earn votes. They claimed to be Christian, but acts contrary to Jesus' teaching.

H---er

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: Weimar Republic

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[History's Coming To]

Agreed, but which is more scary?

"I'm doing this because god told me to"
"I'm doing this because I feel like it, but if I say god told me to do it you're all cool with that?"

IP Address match doesn't prove anything right?

[kotku]

Every time an media industry probe claims to catch people via IP address there is a chorus of nyah nyah from Slashdot on how it is impossible to match IP addresses to actual offenders. However in this case the same chorus is cheering the IP Address smoking gun as solid evidence of guilt. Go figure!

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[quacking duck]

All your links are, in two words matching your tone, FUCKING IRRELEVANT. Because those are for AMERICAN incidents.

Despite GP forgetting to capitalize the "L" in Liberal, by context the GP and GGP posts were obviously referring to the Liberal Party of Canada (there is no major US federal party called Liberal), and *specifically* incidents of voter suppression tactics in our last election.

There were cases of Liberal-backed robocalls during the election that were violated Elections Canada rules, in that they failed to identify the party that the call represented. That is a fucking far cry from claiming to be Elections Canada and misdirecting known non-Conservative voters to non-existent voting stations.

They stack the deck, be sure of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and that DID happen.

Generally Canada has two strong parties(CONS, LIBS), and two or three "weak" parties(NDP, GRN, OTHER) where the two strong generally had enough seats to "run" the country; but couldn't push a draconian law if all the other parties "voted" together. Therefore, if all the other parties voted against them the government would topple (we refer to a government on the edge like this as a Minority Government). So, a minority government is forced to make concessions, win support, etc from the other parties to ensure they do not topple AND to get any laws to pass. The problem with Canada is when we do get a Majority government (where the party doesn't need ANY other support) that basically gives one person a Dictactorship over Canada.

Now, we had (something like 15 years worth) of Minority governments so no party was "really" bad; we got to skip all those idiotic and draconian laws the US had since the elected government could not get enough other parties to agree to bring those laws in.... YEAH! However, in the last election a shit storm occurred; the Liberals seemed to go out of their way to really become assholes supreme and really pushed their supporters into a position of "having to switch to another party" (I wonder if this was US involved as the Leader seemed to come out of nowhere and really didn't connect at all with Canadians -- and rumor said he lived most of his life in the US -- the US really wanted us to have a Majority government (see reason below) so decimating one party in order to give a majority to another doesn't seem out of the realm of possibilities). Unfortunately, the party options were CONS and NDP (biggest of the three "smaller" parties); and a large number of those voters went to the NDP, but enough went to the CONS to give the CONS a majority. And now that the CONS have that majority, all those draconian laws the US wants us to have (thanks to trade agreements, etc) are now coming out full swing... and no surprise! (Note: When I voted I didn't care who won, I consider all the parties about the same, all I wanted was another minority as I believe that is the only government good for Canada).

So yes, Canadians voted for the third party, but enough still went with the last "big" party to screw us all over unfortunately.... What is really dismal is if you look at the popular vote (individual tally of votes rather than as "seats"). I believe (last time I looked) the CONS really only had 35-40% of the popular vote (of all those that voted) so they got a majority with a minority of the voters (I do believe the NDP have more of the Popular vote). Now, toss in the fact the leading party (CONS at time, even with a minority) can control (to some extent) the boundaries for the seats and the robo-call scam and it really does seem like we have a government with much less than 30% of Canadians voting for them...)

So, in the end, it just didn't matter :( And we got another 3 years to go with our supreme leader (doesn't matter what name, any party that got a Majority would be doing the exact same thing since; in my opinion, the political agenda is pushed by the US and corporations, not Canadians....) So, I guess I should be thankful, at least we, as Canadians, have one "good" thing left for us: The ability to vote in a Minority government... But if Canada is reduced to only two parties, then even this last bastion of safety will be gone :( And, just a few months ago, the CONS removed the funding from parties (each party got paid a certain amount for each seat they won each election so that way they had money to support themselves -- this has been allowing for things like the Green Party (usually 1 to 2 seats), and Others (usually 1 to 2 seats), and NDP (usually 10-20 seats) -- The NDP is now larger, but Liberals are in the NDP position (with 15 or so seats)....

Anyways, some scary trends are developing.... and I expect we'll be down to a two party system by the time the next election comes around (which will pretty muc

Re:They stack the deck, be sure of it...

[mdielmann]

Generally Canada has two strong parties(CONS, LIBS), and two or three "weak" parties(NDP, GRN, OTHER) where the two strong generally had enough seats to "run" the country; but couldn't push a draconian law if all the other parties "voted" together.

Um, for almost the entire history of Canada, we have had a majority leadership. This means they could force through whatever they want - they would always have the majority vote, and party 'rules' required people to vote with their party most of the time. For examples of both the Liberals and conservatives passing laws more or less arbitrarily, see the long gun registry and the repealing of the long gun registry.

Also, having just reviewed the general election history for the entire lifespan of Canada, we've had about 30 years of minority government, 7 of those prior to the current majority. Any party has been generally 'bad' by some definition. In fact, what got the conservatives in power was the liberals being on the outs after their sponsorship scandal.

nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we're going to say that robocalls are the equivalent are voter suppression? Like asking for ID to prevent fraud somehow is "voter suppression"? And all of you libs screaming about Ohio - didn't you read the wikileaks Stratfor files? The rampant ballot stuffing in 2008 Ohio was from the OBAMA CAMPAIGN, not the Republicans. In fact, it was McCain himself who decided not to even bring it up, even though they apparently had a lot of evidence that it occurred.

And what exactly is the problem with the conservatives in Canada - their policies appear to have turned the country's economy around...? They are doing much better than any of their neighbors right now.

Face it, this is all about the Left losing power... and that's one thing they cannot tolerate. They will do anything to keep power - even LIE about voter fraud.

Re:nothing to see here

[purpledinoz]

Robocalls redirecting non-conservative voters to the wrong location, so they cannot cast their vote, is election fraud. So you have no problem with this?

Re:

[shutdown -p now]

The question is, will Canada actually do anything about it? If they don't, then how is it really different from e.g. the recent elections in Russia?

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[SnEptUne]

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal

The first quote is most likely spoken by a person who does not aware of his/her own sin, and believe in the falsehood.

The second quote is most likely spoken by someone who is aware of right from wrong, but commited to the wrong nevertheless.

â€oebut he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation†Mark 3:29

A person that will not listen to the voices of his/her own conscience is subject to eternal condemnation, which is quite scary. A person who know what is wrong, but do it nevertheless, is wrong on top of wrong.

Then who is more scary? A person who is commited to do wrong knowingly, or a person who doesn't know right from wrong?

Wow!

[Legion303]

This is stunning news that shocks absolutely no one.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

...and yet, you felt the need to tell everyone that no one is shocked.

Re: that's nonsense

[MickLinux]

My uncle lives up in Toronto, and basically lost his job at the [conservative ] university 15 years ago when he made an incoming conservative candidate appear ridiculous with some well-thught out questions. The candidate was dropped as unviable, but there were repercussions.
Point being, Canda has long been hostage to US fascism. What makes you think that publishing vote fraud evidence will result in anything but
. . . repercussions?

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[Anonymous Coward]

All your links are, in two words matching your tone, FUCKING IRRELEVANT. Because those are for AMERICAN incidents.

I guess you FUCKING missed where AMERICAN politics were DRAGGED into this discussion.

knee jerk reaction, anyone?

Re:

[theshowmecanuck]

No they won't. The way the system work here is that if a party gets a majority government, they have a defacto dictatorship for 5 years. The system allows the party leaders such discipline over their parliamentary members that they always vote the way the party leader wants, or they won't have a job come the next election day. And they are all shooting for their 6years in office to get a full pension at 55. And if they stay in longer they can end up getting more than $100K/year when they reach the literal golden age of 55. Bottom line is that what the PM of a majority government wants, he gets... within the limits of the constitution (I was going to say law, but they're law makers). They've invoked closure, effectively shutting off public debate, on at least a dozen occasions over the past year since they were elected, including the budget. Say what you will about partisanship in U.S. politics, but no-one can stop a republican who wants to vote for a democrat sponsored bill and vice versa. Here it isn't allowed except in rare "open votes" which as I say almost never happen.

So no, nothing will happen. And since this is coming up early in their mandate (four more years to go), the lame ass Canadian masses who only seem to get excited when the hockey is on during the winter Olympics will forget most of what happened. Unfortunately most Canadians seem to just like to sit back and take it up the ass. If it weren't for the fucked up medical system in the U.S. I'd move back in an instant. The secret police issue and patent/copyright bullshit is a wash since the government up here is evidently moving to try to emulate the U.S. in that regards. I can't help it... and what is even more maddening is they have fucked up the manufacturing sector in an effort to promote tar sands development and other resource industries trumpeting how we should be thankful that they are turning us into a third world resource based economy that is losing its manufacturing and tech base... things that make money and provide jobs more evenly across the country. But hell, they and their cronies will be long dead by the time the resource run out so what the hell. People in Canada still can't figure out why if they are going to sell resources they won't even promote refining the damned tar sands based oil in Canada instead of shipping it south or to China unrefined. Evidently their backers would rather just take the money and profit than spend money investing in value added ventures that employ more Canadians. I had high hopes for the conservatives after years of self entitlement Liberal leadership. But those hopes are tanking fast.

Re:

[rtb61]

Here is exactly what Canada will do about. Delay, investigate, evaluate, investigate, refute, investigate, oh well it's time for the next election let's forget all about it.

Fricking Right On

[tjwhaynes]

I'm glad to see that there are other people out there who share my despair at the Canadian political scene. When I watch the current Conservative government repeal six pieces of environmental legislation in a budget bill, I know things are seriously out of whack. I'm just waiting for the Copyright reform bill to reappear - the last draft was pretty much written end to end by the MPAA/RIAA pundits, despite the claims that this was a "Made in Canada" production. Oh, and I'm also glad to see someone who hasn't bought into the rebranding of the Alberta Tar Sands as the "Oil Sands". Go stick your hand in the damn stuff - it's pretty dry sandy tar. Just you can fractionate the more volatile elements of out it doesn't change the facts - this is a bitumen heavy cockatil.

Re:Fricking Right On

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the abortion discussions that some reformist cry babies (I apologize to babies here) want to reopen.

Modded down for beating the pants off a name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, how typical /.

Re:

[Beardo the Bearded]

The reward for election fraud is like killing someone and getting all their stuff.

The penalty is that you have to wear a hat, but you get to keep their stuff.

If Harper was an American, he'd be sitting down to drink with Jack Layton.

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[Beardo the Bearded]

Murder is okay because some other people jaywalk?

National Guard

[mevets]

"at a time when the Guard wasn't actually used for anything useful.â
Didnâ(TM)t that crooked guy dispatch them to kill a bunch of students in those days? Sounds like a dreamy job for a psychotic torturer like GW.

To(e)wing the party line.

[mevets]

That is the party line. We didnâ(TM)t do it! It was a lone operator!
Bush popularized the brat defence - stammer like a little shit and lie your ass off - but these guys have made an art form out of it. Ethics of a snake would be a unkind to the snake.

Re:

[theshowmecanuck]

Naw... he'd be George W Bush sitting down for drink and a laugh with Anthony Scalia.

LOTS here to see!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Talk about cognitive dissonance!

Your views are so out of whack with reality, it's astonishing if you still maintain the ability to walk around without crashing into things. No point arguing with you. Such self-blinding effectively makes facts invisible. You might as well just gouge out your own eyes.

I find deliberate self-inflicted brain damage through applied will remarkable. Pathetic, but remarkable.

Re:Just wondering

[purpledinoz]

Because unlike America, election fraud is not common place in Canada.

Re:FFS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. So wrong.

"Government" has been corrupted, but the idea is sound. "Government" is you and me and everybody else getting together to decide how to best use our collective resources. It's called teamwork, and it's why sports teams work better than a bunch of random individuals running around the field.

The so-called, "free market" is a giant perpetuated bit of nonsense sold to gullible college kids by asshat profs who were once gullible college kids.

Anybody who can't understand that the free market is broken needs to sit the fuck down and learn how money works, how the ability for humans to use collective planning and effort IS the Darwinian trump card and that the 'law' of the jungle only benefits tigers and psychopaths, not you or me. Without government, even as corrupt as it is, nothing would stand between us and the corporations from keeping us in jars to suck off our vital fluids for the super-wealthy. Freedom isn't profitable and slavery gives the best ROI.

Think for a minute: who taught you your bullshit and why?

And yes Dorothy, there are conspiracies.

The solution at this point is, however, the dissolution of the whole game. It's all too corrupt to be repaired and needs a vast reboot. But not under Nike's goddamned heel. FFS, indeed.

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[quacking duck]

AC, you obviously missed the fact that this thread did NOT involve American politics, even if earlier threads did. Hit "Parent" all the way up. The AC who started this thread (or maybe you're the same one) started with "As if the party that promises...". Grammatically, use of "the" ahead of party means he's referring to a specific party, and from the comment title "Liberals are somehow..." it's obvious which one he's referring to. Hint, in case you miss the obvious: it's the Liberal Party of Canada, NOT an American party.

Only after you call out Rockoon's comment a knee-jerk reaction (4 links and emotional ranting against US Democrats and personal attack against ATMAvatar), do you even get a chance at calling my far more measured response a "knee-jerk reaction."

First of all

[NewYork]

Voting in elections is NOT democracy

Won't be the last illegal maneuver

[Anonymous Coward]

My party affiliation was conveniently changed for me just before the primaries here. Can't wait to see what other dirty tricks we'll see this go around.

Re:Just wondering

[JBaustian]

One must be really stupid to even listen to a robocall, much less to change one's vote or decide to vote on a different day..

Also, this seems to be much ado about the frivolities of one Pierre Poutine, aka Pierre Jones. Did he break a law or something?

Re: that's nonsense

[JBaustian]

You do know that fascism is a variant of socialism, don't you? Or do you just like to toss around the term without regard to its origin or basic underpinnings?

Re:Liberals are somehow purer than the Virgin Mary

[mdielmann]

Perhaps, but I've yet to see news of such a conspiracy from the liberal side. It is healthy to treat both sides with a fair amount of skepticism, but don't let the news of one side openly committing fraud turn into a belief that the other is automatically guilty of the same.

Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

Google "shawinigate" or "liberal sponsorship scandal". Hell, we all know that won't happen. You can start reading here and here. I know 8 to12 years is a long time for some people, but this is what came out just before the liberals lost power.

Re: that's nonsense

[MickLinux]

Yes, and arguably Canada is far less socialist thatn the United States, and even was drawn into it much the same as Germany drew Austria. Remember 54-40 or fight in school