Robocall et al issue - Fed 2011 election

[Edward Campbell]

More, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, from a guy (John Ibbitson) who is not a big fan of Harper or the Conservatives, on my the Tories are, probably, "innocent" (of these charges):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/the-case-against-a-conservative-conspiracy/article2358364/

The case against a Conservative conspiracy

JOHN IBBITSON

From Monday's Globe and Mail
Last updated Monday, Mar. 05, 2012

Guy Giorno and Stephen Harper are clearly confident that the Conservative campaign team had nothing to do with dirty tricks involving phone calls in the last election.

The national chair of the Conservative election campaign was emphatic on television Sunday, as the Prime Minister was in the House last week, in declaring no one at the national campaign authorized anyone to commit electoral fraud.

As a general rule, politicians never openly lie, because the consequences of being caught in one just aren’t worth it. (Think Watergate, Monica Lewinsky.) Neither of these men would take that risk.

That doesn’t mean the robo-calls affair is bogus – far from it. The Conservative leadership fostered such a hyper-partisan climate within the party that some person or persons at the riding or even regional level may have felt justified in crossing the line of legality. But this makes Mr. Harper, Mr. Giorno et al morally, not legally, culpable. Voters, not judges, will decide what punishment they deserve.

Before chairing the 2011 election campaign, Mr. Giorno was Mr. Harper’s chief of staff. He got his start in politics helping put together the campaign platform and strategy that brought Mike Harris to power in Ontario.

Both men self-identified at a young age as Conservative underdogs raging against the Liberal machine. They beat the machine, but they and many other Conservatives fear complacency. So even now, no attack ad is too fierce, no gibe too unfair. They will bend the rules to the breaking point and beyond, as they did in the in-and-out scheme to launder national election expenses through local ridings.

But did Mr. Giorno or anyone else in the national campaign authorize people to impersonate Elections Canada officials in order to send Liberal voters to the wrong polling location? “Absolutely not,” he told CTV’s Craig Oliver on Sunday. “Nobody in his right mind running a campaign would have done that.”

Nor did party workers impersonate Liberals in an effort to discredit Liberal campaigns, he said. And he is “as concerned as anybody” at the obvious electoral fraud in Guelph.

“Suppressing the vote is a despicable, reprehensible practice, and everybody ought to condemn it,” Mr. Giorno said.

If you believe Mr. Giorno is telling the truth, then you have to believe that any fraud or misrepresentation on May 2 occurred without the knowledge of campaign headquarters, or happened outside the campaign entirely. Maybe at some training school somebody foolishly said: “You didn’t hear this from me, but here’s one thing you could do…”

But a vast Conservative conspiracy to steal the general election? No.

Beyond that, people who have worked at senior levels on election campaigns, but who prefer not to be identified, say that voter suppression tactics are stupid because they’re inefficient. It is more profitable on election day to mobilize your vote than to try to discourage your opponent’s. Mr. Giorno made much the same point in the interview.

There might be a silver lining in all of this. The abuses of the sponsorship scandal convinced the Liberals to abolish corporate donations to political parties. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the former chief electoral officer, hopes that the robo-call affair will raise the bar for ethical behaviour in future campaigns.

“Canadians will be on the watch and political operatives will be very careful about what they do with our electoral system,” he told Tom Clark on Global TV. “And I think we will see them respecting the law with integrity.”

They should know by now that breaking the rules can land a party in a world of hurt, no matter who did it, or why.

 

[Kalatzi]

I for one used to find my high school civices classes just as dry as dust.  If I were a current teacher I feel this would liven things up a bit, and I expect  that will be good for us all.

For example I find the portions of the article dealing on restrictions on information on the internet particulary interesting.

A bit more background courtesy of the Globe and Mail and the fair use provision of the copyright act.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/a-blood-feud-beyond-ballots/article2359436/

A blood feud beyond ballots

LAWRENCE MARTIN

The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control.”

In 2001, Stephen Harper was president of the National Citizens Coalition. That was his opening line in a fundraising letter.

His loathing for the election overseers was almost pathological, recalls Gerry Nicholls, the conservative commentator who worked with Mr. Harper at the NCC. It was a “blood feud,” he says, one that appears to be “never ending.”


But Mr. Harper had good reason, in Mr. Nicholls’s view, for his contempt. Rather than neutral public servants, the Elections Canada apparatchiks, then led by Jean-Pierre Kingsley, were “the epitome of bureaucratic evil,” with leftist axes to grind.

Mr. Harper’s wars with the ballot bureaucrats at Elections Canada while he was at the NCC were only the beginning. Some of his top men were charged with manipulating campaign finance rules during the 2006 election in what became known as the “in and out” spending scandal.

Now, Elections Canada officials are looking into thousands of complaints about harassing and misleading phone calls made during the 2011 election campaign in which voters were directed to the wrong polling stations. Conservatives deny any wrongdoing, but the robo-call investigation is targeting them and it can hardly be comforting to Mr. Harper that Elections Canada is running it.

The “jackasses” letter that Mr. Harper wrote is intriguing in many ways. What had him incensed was a law that banned Canadians from transmitting real-time election results, the purpose being to prevent voters in one region from learning the results in another before voting.

Mr. Harper was taking up the cause of a B.C. man, Paul Bryan, who had been charged with violating the law after posting Atlantic Canada results on his website in the 2000 election before the polls closed in other parts of the country. Mr. Harper argued that, in the age of the Internet, the Elections Canada ban made no sense. Mr. Bryan’s only offence, he wrote, was to believe in freedom of speech at election time.

But Mr. Harper’s words have a rather peculiar ring today. Elections Canada bureaucrats went after Mr. Bryan, he said in his letter, “to establish the precedent of government control of the Internet. … The implications are very ominous, very scary.” And yet, his own government recently tried to introduce Internet surveillance legislation, only to be thwarted by a public backlash.

“Iron-fisted bully tactics have no place in a free and democratic society,” Mr. Harper wrote, in reference to Mr. Kingsley. “Information is power. The less control the government has over the flow of information, the less control it can exert over its citizens. … We cannot allow the government to dictate what information we can and cannot publish.”

Ironically, on information flows, the Harper government is widely viewed as one of Canada’s most restrictive. Just last week, the journal Nature accused the government of muzzling the science community.

The battles against gag laws by Mr. Harper, who recently lifted the law on the broadcasting of election results, cost the Citizens Coalition more than $1-million in legal fees. In respect to the “in and out” scheme, the RCMP raided Conservative offices in 2008, and the party sued Elections Canada. Ultimately, the party pleaded guilty to overspending during the 2006 campaign.

In his 2001 letter, Mr. Harper accused Elections Canada of being “out of control.” The question today, as the robo-call scandal continues, is whether it’s his own party members who are out of control.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

If I were a current teacher I feel this would liven things up a bit, and I expect  that will be good for us all.

If you were a current teacher, it would go a long way to explaining why so many students have trouble with the written word.

 

[RangerRay]

It's no secret that Lawrence Martin carries water for the Liberals.  He's bitter that he won't be getting a Senate seat anytime soon.

Meanwhile, in the same paper, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, a completely different view:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/robo-calls-get-a-grip-were-canadian/article2359578/

Robo-calls? Get a grip. We’re Canadian

MARGARET WENTE
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Mar. 06, 2012 2:00AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Mar. 06, 2012 4:44PM EST

What’s happened to my country? I went away for a couple of weeks and all hell broke loose. I came back to find that someone named Poutine stole the last election. At first I thought this was a typo, that they meant Putin. But no. It turns out that Russia is a shining beacon of democracy compared to Canada. Apparently, our country has been hijacked by “the most comprehensive electoral fraud in our nation’s history” (Pat Martin, NDP critic). Voter suppression – lying, cheating and general chicanery – has driven us into “uncharted waters” (Bob Rae, Liberal Leader).

I certainly don’t wish to make light of voter fraud. But this fraud seems to have been engineered by the Keystone Kops. Not a single voter claims to have been prevented from voting. No ballot boxes appear to have been stuffed. Nobody was fraudulently elected. There weren’t even any hanging chads. Elections Canada says 31,000 Canadians have complained, but the vast majority of these complaints (“somebody called me at 10 p.m.”) seem trivial.

The dirty trickster at the heart of this evil scheme turns out to be someone with the nom de plume of Pierre Poutine (real identity unknown). Mr. Poutine and his henchmen were not personally directed by Stephen Harper but are widely thought to have been channelling him. In Guelph, Ont., they engineered a bunch of robo-calls that directed people to show up at non-existent voting stations. This tactic was evidently intended to discourage people who didn’t support the Conservatives from voting. It was so effective that the Liberal candidate won by a margin of 11 per cent.

In other ridings, it’s alleged, Conservatives posing as Liberals made rude phone calls to voters at inconvenient times. The idea was to irritate people so much that they’d stay home. There’s no sign that it worked.

“From the point of view of anybody concerned about our political system, it’s a non-scandal,” says Michael Bliss, the eminent historian. But parliamentary politics is such a bear pit that, in the absence of a real scandal (such as the sponsorship affair), a non-scandal will have to do. Opposition politicians, along with a fair portion of the media, have clamped on to the Harper government like a pack of rabid chihuahuas. They’ve escalated the rhetoric so much that you’ve got to wonder what they’ll say when a real scandal comes along.

Yet, they also know they’re playing to the crowd. Just check out the letters pages, or the media comment sites, to get a taste of the vitriol this story has unleashed. A substantial number of Canadians believe Mr. Harper really did steal the 2011 election, in spirit if not in fact, and as far as they’re concerned, the robo-calling scandal just confirms it. “A lot of people – especially Liberals – simply cannot accept the legitimacy of the Conservatives being in power,” says Mr. Bliss. In Canada, just as in the United States, political polarization is on the upswing. And for a variety of reasons, the Harper government has failed to bridge the gap between the 40 per cent who voted for the Conservatives and the 60 per cent who didn’t.

We expect our elections to be squeaky clean, and that’s a good thing. Obviously, there were election irregularities in Guelph, and maybe elsewhere, and Elections Canada needs to find out what happened and who did it. But it’s ridiculous to think there was some massive cheating scheme engineered by higher-ups. We’re not Russia after all. It’s unpopular to say so, but we’re just a boring little democracy that usually functions pretty well.

There is a lot of hot air, bloviating, innuendo and speculation floating around.  From what I can tell, it does not look like a sophisticated concerted effort by any party.  I, for one, will await the findings of any and all investigations.

 

[ModlrMike]

I think the comments to the article pretty much make her case for her.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I think the comments to the article pretty much make her case for her.

Mouth breathers.

 

[Kalatzi]

In-And-Out Election Financing: Tories Drop Supreme Court Case, Repay Taxpayers
link here http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/06/in-and-out-election-financing-tories_n_1325278.html?ref=canada

More of the same here:    Stephen Harper, Tories, Reject Elections Canada Request For Verification Power

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/06/stephen-harper-tories-elections-canada_n_1324962.html?ref=stephen-harpe

I also note the overly simplistic reponnes to Ms Wentes column in the Globe and Mail, You can probably find the sdame in every other column in the media that has taken a negative slant on this.

Let's face it it is the majority. 

Ms Wente notes "That our democracy works well most of the time"

May I respectfully suggest to everyone that thats not good enough

Even better - We wouldn't be having this debate in this forum if we didn't care.  I am very concerned about the level of political debate to the South. Canadcian deserve better.

I tend to be liberal, and am VERY troubled, for example, about how things are going in Toronto right now, We're the 6'th largest public spender in Canada. It's startting to look like chaos.

OK, OK so whats may main point?  There needs to be enough Legs, "Bioviating"Etc on this issue to propell those in charge of seeing it throught to keep the pressure up, so it doesn't gets swept off the back burner.

Finally, for those that have borne with me, this type of denate may not ensure a Utopian solution, but it will go a LONG way in preventing a Dystopian one.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

In-And-Out Election Financing: Tories Drop Supreme Court Case, Repay Taxpayers
link here http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/06/in-and-out-election-financing-tories_n_1325278.html?ref=canada

More of the same here:    Stephen Harper, Tories, Reject Elections Canada Request For Verification Power

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/06/stephen-harper-tories-elections-canada_n_1324962.html?ref=stephen-harpe

I also note the overly simplistic reponnes to Ms Wentes column in the Globe and Mail, You can probably find the sdame in every other column in the media that has taken a negative slant on this.

Let's face it it is the majority. 

Ms Wente notes "That our democracy works well most of the time"

May I respectfully suggest to everyone that thats not good enough

Even better - We wouldn't be having this debate in this forum if we didn't care.  I am very concerned about the level of political debate to the South. Canadcian deserve better.

I tend to be liberal, and am VERY troubled, for example, about how things are going in Toronto right now, We're the 6'th largest public spender in Canada. It's startting to look like chaos.

OK, OK so whats may main point?  There needs to be enough Legs, "Bioviating"Etc on this issue to propell those in charge of seeing it throught to keep the pressure up, so it doesn't gets swept off the back burner.

Finally, for those that have borne with me, this type of denate may not ensure a Utopian solution, but it will go a LONG way in preventing a Dystopian one.

You've been warned about using the spellcheck enough.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[DBA]

I for one used to find my high school civices classes just as dry as dust.  If I were a current teacher I feel this would liven things up a bit, and I expect  that will be good for us all.

For example I find the portions of the article dealing on restrictions on information on the internet particulary interesting.

The Conservative government announced they would lift the ban on transmitting early election results in mid January. 
Ref: CBC: Tories to lift ban on transmitting early election results

 

[a_majoor]

Well, working yourself into a froth without any actual evidence does tend to cloud the mind. Some apologies are now making the rounds:

http://debsimms.com/2012/03/08/robocall-mea-culpas-bring-them-on/

Robocall Mea Culpas: Bring them ON

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by debsimms in Politics

Sorry seems to be the hardest word. But clarifying oneself ain’t so bad.

The spring breezes touching Canada from coast to coast to coast bring not only the promise of renewal and re-birth but also supply charming, legally-sound apologies from individuals who, in their frothy partisan hatred and zeal recently felt the need to smear thousands of innocent, hard-working, civic-minded Canadian volunteers and organizations associated with such Canadians without any evidence.

Courtesy of Stephen Taylor please find — item #1, Apology, oh, excuse me, “clarification”, from NDP MP Pat Martin:

From: NDP/NPD Communications Sent: March 7, 2012 5:00 PM To: NDP/NPD Communications Subject: Statement by MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) // Déclaration du député Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre)

Statement by MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre)

On Sunday, February 26, 2012, I appeared as a guest on the CTV Question Period program.  In the course of that broadcast, I made certain comments dealing with the allegations of voter tampering at the 41st federal general election of May 2, 2011, that seem to have been misunderstood by the corporate officers in charge of Campaign Research Inc, an Ottawa-based company.  Today, I would like to clarify my remarks.

I did not accuse Campaign Research Inc. of having engaged in criminal activity in respect of robo-calls during the Spring 2011 election campaign, nor did I intend to convey that meaning.  My exact remarks were to the effect that this is a company, meaning one of a number of companies, of a size and organizational capacity as to be able to have engaged in strategies to influence the outcome of the election.  In fact, the concluding part of my comments was: “So I would hope the investigators look at the other contractors that are working for the Conservative Party.”

As a Member of Parliament, I not only have the right, but indeed the obligation, to comment on current issues vital to democracy and to the conduct of public affairs.

Pat Martin Member of Parliament Winnipeg Centre

That was fun. Okay, here is another mea culpa from the Green Party:

These are only two — there have been more. There WILL be more. Folks got all irrational, hysterical and downright looney and said some libelous and slanderous things in recent days. Forgot all about the presumption of innocence. Forgot all about waiting for the facts, giving people the benefit of the doubt. It was an orgy of hatred and gleeful, dripping smeary nonsense. But gosh and by golly, doesn’t matter how much you hate somebody, you are not above the law.

Over to you Connie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjHJ_snG3RI

(and as with every single post I have done on this godforsakenenoughalready issue. If you are Pierre Poutine, would you please turn your ridiculous self in NOW. Don’t care one whiff about your motives or affiliations. Let’s not waste tax-payer dollars hunting you down, okay pal. Just lawyer up and get’r done.)

Edit to add:

http://plattytalk.blogspot.com/2012/03/its-simple-question.html

It's a simple question
And one that should take no time at all to respond to, I mean, it happened nine months ago! I sent an email to the Commissioners Office at Elections Canada earlier this week asking if, well here's the email:

    Hello, could you please tell me the number of complaints that Elections Canada received immediately after the last election, in other words, before robocall became a matter of media interest.

    Thank you

    Best regards



They should have these numbers in their back pocket, you know they must be looking at them on a daily basis. Anyway, I did receive a response from the commishes office, and here it is:


    We acknowledge receipt of your email.



    The Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections



Really? You think they could have thrown in the number with that email? Ah well, I await their speedy reply with the actual number attached. I'm going to guess 1036 people actually complained after the last election. Anyone else care to throw out a number?

 

[Cloud Cover]

I have read the June 8, 2011  Information and Beleif to Obtain a Production Order and a copy of the Production Order. itself. It is available on the web if you search for it. It is a long read, and is fairly well organized but one does need to white board to map the evidence path due to its complexity.  My review of this order is that it appears that a very diligent public officer at Elections Canada has been assigned to this case, and that the electronic evidence appears to be pointing in the direction of the Marty Burke Conservative campaign, as noted at paragraph 64;

"Based on the facts identified above in the grounds for my belief I think it is reasonable for me to believe that some sort of customer relationship existed between the Marty Burke Conservative campaign in Guelph for the 41st general election and Racknine, Inc. or between certain Burke campaign workers and Racknine Inc.;  that this relationship was related to the general election campaign in Guelph; and that the reltionship related to the misleading calls made to Guelph area electors.."


Now note that this is only an information a belief to obtain a Production Order pursuant to 487.012 of the Criminal Code, that was endorsed by a Justice of the Peace in Alberta, and it is not a finding of any particular facts by a trial judge. The Criminal Code Production Order authority is available to a public officer such as an Elections Canada investigator, but is not restricted only to criminal code violations- it is available for investigating for the purposes of enforcing any Act of Parliament, in this case the Canada Elections Act.

I am not able to determine if the results of this part of the investigation were actually available in full at the time the initial draft of the election report was published by Elections Canada. 

If you cant find the document on the web, PM me and i will send it to you.

       

 

[PuckChaser]

"Reasonable to believe some sort of relationship" means the person has no legally admissible proof. Its the same circumstantial crap the opposition is throwing around trying to see what sticks.

 

[a_majoor]

In a rather bizzare development, dirty trick Robocalls have surfaced in the United States. Given the Canadian media frenzy over the issue, it is perhaps not surprising some Americans got the idea this is either effective or is a matter of great concern to ordinary Canadians:

http://harndenblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/03/-women-of-the-99-percent.html

Illegal robocalls accuse Republicans over Rush Limbaugh and 'slut' slur

A group calling itself "The Women of the 99 Percent" is making robocalls across the United States in an attempt to link Republican members of the House of Representatives to "the war on women led by Rush Limbaugh".

The automated calls are illegal because they do not state who they are from (there is no known group called The Women of the 99 Percent) or provide a callback number, as required under the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.

Using the Left-wing "Occupy" terminology of the 99 percent versus the one percent, they appear to be the most aggressive attempt yet by Democrats to exploit politically the recent furore over comments by the controversial conservative radio talk show host.

Limbaugh apologised last Sunday for his "insulting word choices" when speaking about Sandra Fluke, a student activist campaigning for contraception to be paid for by Georgetown University, a Catholic institution, under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform.

The radio host had said she was a "slut" because she was asking to be paid for having sex and then commented that she should repay the public by releasing videos of her sexual activities "so we can all watch".

Limbaugh's comments had been widely denounced, including by John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Obama, in what Republicans branded an attempt to make political political capital, telephoned Fluke to commiserate.

Democrats have been taking Republicans to task over the comments. David Axelrod, the Obama campaign's top strategist, said that Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner, had failed "a test of leadership" over "the Limbaugh thing". He ask how if a candidate couldn't stand up to "the most strident voices in your party how can he stand up to Ahmadinejad?"

A call left on the answering machine of Paula Bolyard of Doylestown, Ohio yesterday stated: "Hello, this is a message from Women of the 99 percent. Congressman Jim Renacci is condoning the war on women led by Rush Limbaugh, who has become the de facto leader of the Republican party.

"Call Congressman Renacci at 330-489-4414 and ask him why he remains silent while Republican spokesman Rush Limbaugh insults, degrades, and verbally abuses women. Tell Congressman Renacci that it’s just plain shameful that he that he allows Rush Limbaugh’s behaviour to continue. We are the Women of the 99 percent and we won’t be silent anymore."

As well Mrs Bolyard's Ohio-16 district of Representative Jim Renacci, there were similar calls in Rep Roscoe Bartlett's Maryland-6, Rep Dan Benishek's Michigan-1, Rep Judy Biggert's Illinois-13, Rep Tim Johnson's Illinois-15, Rep Bobby Schilling's Illinois-17 and Rep Scott Rigell's Virginia-2.

The robocalls prompted hundreds of angry calls to Republican congressional offices.

Mrs Bolyard sent out a tweet about the call and then posted an audio file of it on the RedState website after being contacted by MailOnline.

In a blog post, she wrote: "Apparently, unless you are throwing a public temper tantrum about Rush’s inappropriate and malicious comments, you are “condoning” them. By this standard, 99% of the country is guilty."

She added: "We should all feel great compassion for the poor souls who had to answer the phones and listen to the angry rants that resulted from these robocalls."

A blogger called "Corinthian Scales" from Michigan wrote that the claim against Rep Dan Benishek was "one wildly outrageous accusation to make by an unidentified 'group' who, by the way, is now intruding into the privacy of my home.

"Hmmm... no number shows on the caller ID, and *69 only prompts the phone company's recorded message that they are unable to determine the phone number used."

Last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) organised a petition accusing Republicans of having "launched an all-out war on women".

The petition said that Republicans were "trying to silence women who stand against their radical agenda" and Americans had witnessed "top Republican leaders squirm at denouncing or even criticising Rush Limbaugh after he called women's health care advocate Sandra Fluke a 'slut' and a 'prostitute' on his radio show".

Phil Bloomer, spokesman for Rep Johnson, said that some people calling as a result of the robocalls were not even in the congressman's district but part of a new district created after boundary changes he will be running for in November - a sign the calls are linked to this year's elections.

He said: "How do we not 'allow' Rush Limbaugh to say what he wants? We believe in free speech. At the same time, we don’t condone name-calling or caustic language from either the Left or Right. That is why Representative Johnson formed the Center Aisle Caucus in 2005 and continually advocates civility."

Andrea Pivarunas, spokeswoman, for Rep Schilling, said: "We were surprised to hear this since Representative Schilling spoke out about this days ago.

"He stated Mr. Limbaugh’s comments on the religious freedom issue are deplorable and wrong, just as he also feels that the Obama Administration is wrong to violate the religious conscience rights of others.  We hope the organisation spreading these inaccurate statements will issue a retraction."

Telephone calls and emails to the DCCC and the Democratic National Committee asking whether either organisation was connected to the robocalls were not returned.

 

[a_majoor]

As was probably inevitable, the LPC is also now caught (with audio evidence, no less) of doing Robocalls as well. We of course will hear volumes about this on the CBC....(yeah, right)

http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2012/03/10/no-one-is-smelling-like-roses/

No one is smelling like roses
Posted on March 10, 2012 by Joanne

I’m very grateful that we have at least a handful of ethical, objective journalists in Canada, and John Ivison is certainly among that chosen few.

Last night Ivison broke the story of the Liberal robocalls in Guelph complete with audio file – New Guelph robocall attacks Tories, listen to the phone message here. He makes the point at the end that “no one in politics is going to emerge from this dung-storm smelling of roses.”

The RoboFembot did not identify herself as being funded by the Liberal party, which caused Liberal MP Frank Valeriote to hastily explain that it was an ‘oversight’.

Granted there does not appear to be anything criminal here – unethical or mean-spirited perhaps considering the nature of the call.  But it does allow some perspective on a story that most media prefer to skew against the Conservatives –  instead of waiting for Elections Canada to finish the investigation.

A Liberal MP admits his campaign made a mistake by not identifying as the party behind the call. He has ‘apologized’.  Is that good enough?

As Preston Manning stated yesterday, voter suppression is ‘deplorable’. However he also pointed out, “If you try to link these things to any one party, it’s a mistake.”

But most media outlets seem to be reporting by Confirmation Bias which is deplorable in itself. Facts are facts but some seem to be selectively depressed, while others are torqued up to promote a certain agenda. (Of course here we also need to make a distinction from ‘news’ coverage vs. editorials or opinion articles.)

In any case, let’s encourage the few credible journalists we have left – and make sure they know their efforts are appreciated.

For the sake of democracy we need fair reporting.

*  *  *  *

Related

I would also like to mention some of my fellow Blogging Tories who have done some amazing work on this file.

Please check out:

A CAW Worker’s Voice Of Reason (Paulsstuff is on fire!)

BC Blue

Spin Assassin

The Iceman

I know there are more and I invite you to leave links to your posts in the comment section.
Thanks.

We have a terrific team!!

*  *  *  *

Update

Andrew MacDougall sets the record straight regarding Elections Canada rules on Guelph Liberal robocalls.

 

[ballz]

As was probably inevitable, the LPC is also now caught (with audio evidence, no less) of doing Robocalls as well. We of course will hear volumes about this on the CBC....(yeah, right)

I don't recall the LPC or the NDP ever saying they don't use robocalls during election campaigns? Bob Rae said in the HoC over a week ago that they used a company called First Contact...

The issue isn't using these robocall companies, it's that someone tried to use robocalls to commit voter suppression.

 

[a_majoor]

Try reading the full post and listening to the audio. This Liberal Robocall seems to break one and maybe two EC laws.

As for voter suppression, AFAIK there is only one substantiated instance of a voter being sent to a different polling station (the rest are allegations, which only surfaced after the story broke. Until they are substantiated, I`d keep these numbers on hold).

edit to add

The root cause of the entire `sending people to the wrong polling booth` may not be any political party at all, but rather:

http://pragmatictory.blogspot.com/2012/03/is-media-slowly-uncovering-elections.html

Is The Media Slowly Uncovering Elections Canada Incompetence?

Over this past week the opposition and the media have been hammering the Tories with allegations and speculation of large scale election fraud, and their relentless "digging for the truth" may be about to uncover large scale election incompetence by Elections Canada's army of temporary low wage workers. For example, CBC's Terry Milewski reported today on several hundred incomplete or bogus registration forms in the riding office of Eglington Lawrence, where Joe Oliver defeated Joe Volpe (of course you might remember Joe Volpe, who formerly registered dead people to support his Liberal leadership campaign). The accusations that the Conservative candidate was responsible for sloppy paper work in the EC office started flying before anyone thought to point out that Elections Canada is responsible for ensuring that registration forms are properly completed with proof of ID provided before they add that voter to the list of electors. This is not Joe Oliver's fault, but that inconvenient truth is absent from Milewski's investigative report.

If Elections Canada registration forms are suddenly going to fall under the media's watchful scrutiny, be prepared for errors and mistakes numbering in the thousands (I'd recommend looking into the riding of Libby Davies in East Vancouver for starters). EC would much rather investigate allegations of misleading robocalls than expose their own mistakes. That is not to paint all election workers with the same brush, but we are talking about a work force of thousands with varying levels of competence. There's an idiot in every room and election law is complex and continually evolving. If we start a full investigation into botched or incomplete registration forms, this is going to extend far beyond a single Toronto riding, and the black eye will belong to Elections Canada, not the Conservative party. If we find that most of this "greatest electoral fraud in Canadian history" was actually primarily Elections Canada f**k-ups; I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from Pat Martin or any of the other dipshits so eager to jump to conclusions before there exists any evidence of wrong doing by the Tories.

I don't often recommend people read Milewski's work, but if you scroll down and read the comments, it just might make you sick to your stomach.

 

[ballz]

Try reading the full post and listening to the audio. This Liberal Robocall seems to break one and maybe two EC laws.

As for voter suppression, AFAIK there is only one substantiated instance of a voter being sent to a different polling station (the rest are allegations, which only surfaced after the story broke. Until they are substantiated, I`d keep these numbers on hold).

edit to add

The root cause of the entire `sending people to the wrong polling booth` may not be any political party at all, but rather:

http://pragmatictory.blogspot.com/2012/03/is-media-slowly-uncovering-elections.html

I did read the full post, and I did listen to the recording. What EC laws are you suggesting it breaks? The article even specifically says that there was nothing illegal about it, and from what I can tell there isn't either. I would also disagree that it's unethical.

As for voter suppression, AFAIK there is only one substantiated instance of a voter being sent to a different polling station (the rest are allegations, which only surfaced after the story broke. Until they are substantiated, I`d keep these numbers on hold).

The root cause of the entire `sending people to the wrong polling booth` may not be any political party at all, but rather:

That's irrelevant to my comment. I never said voter suppression did take place and I never said the Tories are guilty of it. Just pointing out that both your comment is completely missing the issue.

 

[rifleman]

What a stretch to even  try to tie that robocall to anything related to the allegation of misdirection to the wrong polling station....#fail

 

[ModlrMike]

What a stretch to even  try to tie that robocall to anything related to the allegation of misdirection to the wrong polling station....#fail

Not exactly. We now have concrete evidence of only one party breaking the law... and it's not the Conservatives. While not precisely the same as the alleged robocall content, let he who is without sin etc...

 

[a_majoor]

The one clear violation of the EA is the Liberal Robocall is no party affiliation was declared by the caller.

The possible violation is the identity of the caller; if this is an actor and no one of that name really exists then impersonation of another person is also a violation of the EA.