You wouldn’t know that there was an ongoing Elections Canada investigation into automated calls that sent a number of people in Guelph to the wrong polling stations in the May 2 election.
Many locals were simply over it. This is a scandal that has been brewing in the small town since last year.
“It’s not news (anymore). It’s just reached a national level,” said local political blogger and freelance writer Adam Donaldson. He says people had been hearing about the calls since last year and the national media just recently picked up on it. The local paper reported on the suspicious calls the day of the election.
Donaldson, who worked at a polling station, said he encountered about a dozen people who told him about being sent to the wrong station.
“Of course people are upset,” he said, adding that Conservatives and Liberals alike were outraged by it. “It’s an issue that can break the partisan divide because everyone can agree they don’t want their elections messed up, and they don’t want to be mislead.”
But this is also a town that is no stranger to sketchy political tactics and manoeuvres. Last year, Michael Sona, communications for director Conservative candidate Marty Burke, attempted to stop voting at an advance polling station on the university campus by trying to remove the ballot box. And students wearing T-shirts with environmental logos were asked to turn them inside out before being admitted to a Conservative rally.
(Sona resigned Feb. 24 as an aide to Toronto-area MP Eve Adams.)
At this point there’s still a vacuum of information that needs to be filled by Elections Canada and the government said Donaldson. “The silence from their end is deafening,” he said about the Harper government’s reaction to the revelations in Guelph.
Even those sent to the wrong polling stations on election were bemused by the incident a year later.
Elizabeth Donaldson, Adam’s sister, was having lunch May 2 and planning to go over to vote that afternoon when she received one of the calls. It was an automated message sending her to the old Quebec Street mall, but her voting card said she’d be voting at the West End Community Centre.
Minutes after she hung up the phone her mother walked in from voting at the centre. “So we knew it was obviously a phony message,” she said, with a chuckle.
Her mother called Elections Canada and they told her they’d been receiving calls all morning. “The cynical part of you assumes it’s the Conservative party . . .”
People probably aren’t upset over the calls and investigation any longer because Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote won anyways, she said.
“It’s kind of interesting that we’re in the news all the time now,” she said.
Adam Donaldson said the timing on the coverage makes sense because it comes after the summer political lull and fall election campaign. But the national media and outrage is a little behind the times in this town and some question how long it’ll remain a hot issue.
“It seems scandals in Canada don’t last very long. People don’t get that outraged.” said Planet Bean Coffee shop cashier Emma Howarth-Withers, 26. That’s especially true in Guelph where she says these types of political stunts are becoming ever more common.
Joan Shellnutt, 63, volunteered at a polling station that had a few people who had been sent to the wrong one. She said beyond the confusion, voters were frustrated. “People had taken time out of their daily schedules to go and vote and to have to run around is frustrating,” she explained.
Now most people just want answers. “If someone has tampered with the process then I don’t think that’s right and I think that should be corrected,” said Shellnutt.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Chantaie Allick
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