Misleading Robocalls Went To Voters ID'd As Non-Tories 148
silentbrad writes "An investigation by CBC News has turned up voters all over Canada who say the reason they got robocalls sending them to fictitious polling stations was that they'd revealed they would not vote Conservative. Although the Conservative Party has denied any involvement in the calls, these new details suggest that the misleading calls relied on data gathered by, and carefully guarded by, the Conservative Party. Known as 'CIMS,' the database assigns a 'smiley' face to supporters, and a 'sad' face to non-Conservatives. Liberal and NDP politicians say it would make no sense to call randomly, since many of the voters misled would be Conservatives."
well, obviously (Score:5, Insightful)
The Conservative party is the party representing the interests of powerful people who wish their interests to be represented in law (*). It is in the interests such people to have such a party in power. It is a logical consequence that they will use any means possible to get this party into power.
Owen Jones said of the granddaddy English Conservative Party, quoting a speaker at his college: "What you have to realise about the Conservative party is that it is a coalition of privileged interests. Its main purpose is to defend that privilege. And the way it wins elections is by giving just enough to just enough other people."
(*) Contrast e.g. philosophical libertarians who in principle (at least) will not want the government to give them special favours.
Let's talk about responsibility (Score:0, Insightful)
Prior to elections in Canada you receive a document from the government telling you where you will vote and contact information should you have questions or issues. You are instructed to keep it in a safe place and even bring it with you to the polling station. That said, this list of voters is pure gold. Nigerian or other scammers would probably pony up some serious coin for hundreds (thousands?) of names of people void of common sense and who will believe anything a phone caller tells them. Our local NDP member of parliment has been doing much hand wringing over the fact that these poor people where so deceived and someone's gunna' pay... blah, blah, blah. But I see no wringing of hands of how folks seem to have abandoned the notion of being self reliant, responsible, skeptical or just admitting they got duped because they are chumps. You've got your tempest and your teapot. Nothing to see here.
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is they got a thin majority, and that some of the ridings they won were won by fewer than 1000 votes. Many of those ridings, there are reports of this kind of robocall happening. There is every possibility that they wouldn't have won, or at least wouldn't have won a majority, if this kind of disenfranchisement wasn't happening.
More than that, it's illegal to represent yourself falsely as an official working for Elections Canada. It's also electoral fraud. Strictly speaking, under the law, they can have their charter as an official party revoked over this, meaning that if this goes all the way, we don't currently have a legal government, and our last election was invalid. Particularly interesting considering that Canada is one of the few countries that always gets asked to send observers to foreign countries to make sure the election is done properly.
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
"A couple of bad apples"? Are you serious? You might want to study some recent history. It's always the conservatives spying on people and generally pulling dirty tricks. They're the scum of this world.
Why so many excuses? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Should everyone stop voting for the party they felt to represent them the best, because of a couple of bad apples?
Canada is not the USA, we have more than two parties. We have dozens of parties! Are you so ideologically blind as to vote for one party, even if you know they are corrupt and do not represent your best interests as a tax paying citizen? Really? Are you that cynical? Because if so, that is incredibly sad. We deserve the best government money can buy. If there is corruption, it should be routed out. If a party is rotten, it's leader should resign. If the Prime Minister can no longer guarantee he/she has the trust of the citizenry, a confidence vote should be called. We have many options in our democracy, we do not have to accept corruption, lies, deception.
When will people learn (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't tell them who you're going to vote for. They have no right to know.
Re:Why so many excuses? (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I'd prefer the best government money can't buy.
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
By definition, liberals spy on government and conservatives spy on people, so really, your argument falls flat on its face.
All sides spy and pull dirty tricks, Conservatives are evil enough to do it to people; liberals do it to corporations, which conservatives would like us to believe are people.
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the conservative party is behind this, maybe not... but does it really matter?
Yes. Aside from being very illegal and possibly throwing a number of elections, it's a blow to the reputation of that party. if they're leaking confidential information to a sleazy robocaller, then what else could they leak? Credit cards? It might also have legal consequence for the party even if "a few bad apples" did it.
And yes, such a display of criminality and incompetence would affect my voting decisions.
Re:It makes no sense at all (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering how much they got away with so far, it's only logical that they push the envelope further. The general voter apathy makes it even possible, if not likely, that they will still get away with it. What will happen? A committee will get formed that, after lengthy discussion, comes to the conclusion that no direct involvement of a party can be established, maybe a scapegoat or two gets sacrificed (read: someone who wanted to leave politics for a better paying career in the private sector anyway), then it gets closed. Voters are stupid enough to forget about it 'til the next time anyway.
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:4, Insightful)
Should everyone stop voting for the party they felt to represent them the best, because of a couple of bad apples?
If you are represented best by a bunch of criminal thugs, then feel free to continue voting for them. Your apologetics are every bit as disgusting as their tactics.
Re:Who is responsible? Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about anyone subsequently imprisoned under the omnibus crime bill?
Seniors?
Veterans who've had their benefits cut?
"Find a victim" of the Harper government is easy. Getting the Harper government to admit that the people are being victimized to pay for "anti crime" legislation and the screwed up F-35 delivery schedule is another thing.
CANADA is the victim. All of it.
Many people don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people don't understand how serious this issue is, including many of my fellow Canucks, friends, and family.
Several of the ridings which the Harper "government" won were very closely contested and were victimized by these robocalls directing people to non-existent polling stations. Whether they were smart enough to realize it was fraud, checked it out with Elections Canada, or were actually duped by the calls is irrelevant.
It was illegal for anyone to try to interfere with the vote in this fashion. The fact that there was interference invalidates the results in the affected ridings.
That means that there are more ridings that need to be re-elected than the Harpercrites had "won" to achieve their "majority." The quotes are because the only people who believe they have a legitimate majority any more are die-hard Conservatives who refuse to accept their party was involved despite the increasing evidence that not only were they responsible, but the how of the crime is being dismantled as well by investigators.
This is a serious, serious threat to the very foundation of democracy in Canada.
If the Harper "government" is allowed to continue in power after this kind of blatant vote interference, Canada will have allowed itself to be taken over by an organization using tactics no more ethical than that of any totalitarian regime or banana republic. This is as bad as or worse than the "votes" in the Ukraine and Russia, which are perpetually questioned by the entire world.
Yet sickeningly enough, it's our own Canadian observers who are requested to go and monitor elections in countries like Ukraine and Russia and to report on them.
The Elections Canada investigation is moving along as quickly as it can. While I wish it were moving faster, my one fervent hope is that they start tagging ridings as invalid and pulling the "elected officials" from power in those ridings, regardless of who is behind the calls.
That's the key point: I don't care who is behind the calls. The identity of the person, persons, organizations, companies, foreign interests, or political parties who were behind the calls does not really matter to me all that much. What matters is that the election results in those ridings are invalid and the seat-holders can not be allowed to remain in power without a re-election in those ridings. Not if Canada is to be able to continue to claim to be a "democratic" country instead of one where electoral fraud and interference are shrugged off as being "normal."
Re:It makes no sense at all (Score:5, Insightful)
The general voter apathy makes it even possible...
Yes. Election fraud is a direct attack on democracy. Voters who doesn't care enough to be vigilant against scams like this are accomplices to the crime.
Re:Kettle, black, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
the Liberals are .. well the liberals, but their last leader didn't do them any favours with his here again, back to america tomorrow antics.
Fucking liar. Ignatieff accepted a position at U of Toronto [utoronto.ca].
Why do conbots like free trade and the ability of the most talented to be able to accept the highest paid, most prestigious positions anywhere in the world... except when it's to their political advantage to smear someone for doing exactly that? (Note, I'm not a big fan of Ignatieff, but compared to what we've got, he's several orders of magnitude better.)
For just once I wish these guys could stop slinging mud and do something productive, but this is politics we're talking about.
For just once I wish a conbot would knock it off with the false equivalencies about how murderers and speeders are the same because they both broke a law. (Conbots being the murderers in this analogy, in case you're too intellectually challenged to understand it.)
Re:Kettle, black, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
Rae was NDP back when he was premier of Ontario, but he's federal Liberal leader now.
I certainly hope you're not trying to put the Vickileaks Twitter prank, a protest against the provisions of Bill C-30, in the same category as scumbag election tampering. One hurt the feelings of a cabinet minister who'd just called everyone who didn't support his stupid bill child molesters; the other was an attempt to stop people from voting.
The Conservative agenda proceeds apace, with an austerity budget — hey, everyone's doing it, great excuse to gut the public sector — out in a week or so.