I guess Elections Canada must have a selfie-video of Michael Sona looking into his cell-phone and cackling,”I just sent a hundred people to the wrong poll and I intended to do it…hahahaha.”
After reading Yves Cote’s account of Election Canada’s three-year investigation of robocalls in the 2011 election, you pretty much understand why trying to steal elections is so tempting for people who believe if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.
The best that can be said about the recent report into Robocalls is that at least Elections Canada publicly accounted for its decision not to pursue any charges. Regardless whether you believe their explanation, that was the responsible thing to do.
The RCMP, the Crown’s Office and the minister of justice have offered no similarly detailed explanation of why the investigation into Nigel Wright was dropped. That was, and remains, deeply troubling.
After all, no one knows the chain of events that led to that outcome and who actually made the decision to drop the investigation. It is now legal for a chief of staff of a prime minister to give $90,000 to a sitting legislator and go to considerable trouble to hide that fact as long as he has good intentions. There is a well-known tropical destination paved with good intentions, right?
People need to be clear on what EC’s decision doesn’t mean since we live in an era of bullshit and blarney. It doesn’t mean that nothing happened here. During the writ period, there were complaints from 11 ridings about calls from Conservative campaigns directing voters to the wrong polls. By May 6, 2011 there were 49 complaints from about 40 electoral districts across Canada. But returning officers were sometimes not able to provide names or numbers for people who complained. Robocalls was still a relatively new animal in 2011 – at least the devious kind.
According to Cote’s report, some complainants reported calls from the Conservative party asking if they would support the party. Once they told the caller they would not, they received a second call a short time later directing them to vote at a location not on their Voter Identification Card.
Investigators found it “understandable” that voters felt this was “an indication that something inappropriate was happening.” No kidding. But for a criminal investigation, Cote lectured “more than a close juxtaposition in time is required.” Investigators could not find evidence linking the two events.
What Yves Cote’s report really means is that not all elements of an offence under the Elections Act as written could be established. A big part of the reason for that is the weak investigative powers of the Commissioner rather than a shortage of skullduggery.
It really comes down to the fact that the Elections Canada Act is like a worn out pair of your grannie’s lace-ups. The commissioner can’t compel evidence, and persons of interest can decline to be interviewed by EC investigators. Cote noted that “In one instance, a person who investigators believed could have provided very relevant information declined to be interviewed.”
Many others in this investigation did the same thing. And apparently there is no such thing as attempted voter suppression. Unless a voter is actually prevented from voting, there is no offence. And that’s not all. If incorrect poll information is given out and a citizen wants to pursue a complaint it is “not sufficient to simply prove the content of the call and the identity of the caller.” It is also necessary to prove the call was made with the intention of preventing an elector from voting. The burden of proof, “is the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Believe it or not, the same burden of proof applies to harassing calls: “To transmit false or mistaken information without the requisite intent, however objectionable it may be, is not, in itself, an offence under the Act,” Cote reports.
Think about that for a moment. Without the element of mens rea or guilty mind, a rogue robocaller is not breaking the law merely by misdirecting voters to the wrong poll. In order for an offence to take place, there are two additional requirements. The voter must prove as a result of the call, he didn’t vote; and investigators have to be satisfied that the robocaller intended his misinformation to stop the person from voting.
You see why the jails will not soon be filled with cheating robocallers. Why else would a robocaller send a person to the wrong poll — to introduce him to a part of town he’s never seen before?
As a matter of fact, EC investigators did find six complainants in parts of the country other than Guelph who told them that they did not vote because of misleading robocalls. Since no one was charged in those instances, the assumption is that EC either didn’t believe them, their evidence was not documented beyond the recollection of a call made months before, or the robocaller did not intend to prevent them from voting by sending them to the wrong poll.
And here is something else to remember: One political party asked EC for polling site information before the last federal election. Guess which one? EC made the information available to all parties but there were restrictions accompanying the data. Elections Canada expressly told the campaigns not to provide poll site information to voters. EC specified that, “the database was for internal purposes only, and was not to be ‘used to inform voters of their voting locations via mail-outs or other forms of communication.’”
Despite the “warning”, the Conservative Party of Canada did exactly what EC had forbidden it to do — use the restricted EC database to contact voters about their polling stations.
EC investigators found that Conservative telemarketing firm RMG attempted to call 289 complainant numbers. Of those reached, in almost every case RMGs callers properly identified themselves as calling from the Conservative party as required.
However, “Investigators found that a number of RMG callers told electors at which poll location they should vote, rather than asking electors to verify the poll location indicated on their VIC as outlined in the script.”
I wonder what Elections Canada will do about that? A fine, a go-to-your-room-without-your supper, a sigh?
The poll information given out by RMG callers to voters who complained to EC was incorrect 27 per cent of the time.
According to Cote’s report, when EC did a random sample of 1,000 calls done by RMG callers to voters who had not complained, only 1 per cent of the poll information was incorrect. Hmmm.
Some Conservatives would have you believe that the Commissioner of Elections Canada has exonerated them. Remember, these are the same people who called pleading guilty to a lesser charge of cheating in the 2006 election a “victory.” Elections Canada hasn’t exonerated the CPC, it just decided not to proceed with charges.
There is no question that this was a difficult, novel, and taxing investigation for Elections Canada — especially with a hostile PMO waiting to pounce on any mistake Complaints were made months after the triggering event, and your average citizen doesn’t record evidence like a trained police officer.
But this investigation should not have taken three years to complete. The powers of EC investigators were already woefully inadequate before Bill C-23 came along. If it passes, even in its amended form, things will just get worse.
Ironically, if Canadians take the time to read Cote’s Summary Investigation on Robocalls, the report just might have an unintended consequence. When people see how difficult it is to get satisfaction from a complaint, and how easy it is to cheat in elections, they might just have another reason not to vote.
As I’ve said before, it is raining bananas. It will be pouring bananas in 2015 if Pierre Poilievre’s notion of electoral reform carries the day.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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