Database and IP Records Tie Election Fraud To Canada's Ruling Conservatives 257
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."
Re:Whatever happened in Ohio? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Thousands? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whatever happened in Ohio? (Score:4, Informative)
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:Suppress Away (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Whatever happened in Ohio? (Score:4, Informative)
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:Suppress Away (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Whatever happened in Ohio? (Score:4, Informative)
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:Baseless? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Baseless? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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:How about that! (Score:5, Informative)
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:Whatever happened in Ohio? (Score:3, Informative)
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. [msn.com]
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: (Score:5, Informative)
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.