In an email May 1, party lawyer Arthur Hamilton told Elections Canada that Conservative call centre workers were not advising voters that Elections Canada had changed the location of polling stations, and that the party had not advised voters to go to a polling station an hour and a half from their home.
But a report released by Elections Canada last month includes a script that shows the party’s callers were telling voters that Elections Canada had changed the location of polling stations, and investigators found one voter who was directed to a polling station 740 kilometres away.
The report from Elections Canada found that there was no evidence of a conspiracy to prevent Canadians from voting, but comparing the script included in the report to emails obtained under access-to-information legislation raises questions about whether the Conservatives have been honest about their use of political calls.
Hamilton sent his email to Elections Canada as the agency was fielding complaints from voters who had been given bad information about their polling station by Conservative campaigns.
Elections Canada lawyer Ageliki Apostolakos emailed Hamilton on the evening of April 29.
“In the course of the last half-hour, Elections Canada has heard that two representatives of the Conservative campaign office are communicating with electors in two electoral districts to inform them that their polling station has changed to another location,” she wrote.
Hamilton replied 27 hours later, just after midnight on May 1. He wrote that because Elections Canada changed some polling station locations “a number of our candidates have had to confirm the proper location of polling stations to a number of supporters during their respective get-out-the-vote efforts.”
“The calls being made by our candidates request the voter to confirm his or her polling location. There is no indication by the caller that the location may have changed, or words to that effect. And no voter is being directed to a polling location one and a half hours away from the correct polling location.”
But a script included in Elections Canada’s report shows that workers at Conservative call centres were told to deliver the following line: “Elections Canada has changed some voting locations at the last moment. To be sure could you tell me the address of where you’re voting?”
Elections Canada had asked the Conservatives not to communicate with voters about the location of their polling stations.
The morning after receiving Hamilton’s email, Apostolakos emailed colleagues to say the response from Hamilton “was not very clear. It seems that Conservative candidates are confirming the address of polling stations. They are pretending that Elections Canada or the returning officer have changed the polling stations. Moreover, Hamilton indicates that the Conservatives are doing no more than advise electors to verify their polling station.”
As the day went on, officials became more concerned at “some mischief purportedly done (by) representatives of the Conservative Party,” as one email put it. Another email said the reports were coming from “right across the country except Saskatchewan.”
As the volume of calls increased, on the afternoon of May 1, Elections Canada’s legal counsel Karen McNeil again emailed Hamilton, listing 10 ridings where voters were being misdirected and Conservative party phone numbers were linked to the calls.
“Any inquiries you can make in an effort to determine who is making these calls would be appreciated,” McNeil wrote.
Hamilton responded the next day — election day — resending the email he had earlier sent that incorrectly stated that the party was not telling voters their polling stations had moved.
“I will send you the answer I provided to Mr. Apostolakos, as it is responsive to your inquiry below,” he wrote.
Neither Hamilton nor party spokesman Cory Hann responded to a requests for information about the emails last week.
Hamilton sent the second email at 10:45 a.m. on election day, as Elections Canada officials were struggling to deal with the fallout from a robocall that misdirected opposition supporters in Guelph, Ont. Party worker Michael Sona faces a trial in relation to that call in June. He maintains he is innocent and is being used as a fall guy by the party.
Elections Canada’s two-year, $650,000 investigation into reports of dirty political calls across the country found that “incorrect poll locations were provided to some electors,” but there was no proof of intent to deceive.
The report says, however, that investigators were sometimes hampered by a lack of co-operation.
“There were a few instances where it took several months or longer for investigators to receive the information they had requested, or for interviews they had asked for to be arranged,” the report says. In one instance, a person whom investigators believed could have provided very relevant information declined to be interviewed.”
The report does not indicate who failed to help investigators in a timely way, and Elections Canada has declined to identify the person who refused to be interviewed.
But Opposition MPs and other critics have accused the Conservatives of being deceptive and secretive, pointing to a number of examples where the party appeared to delay or stymie investigators.
– In 2011, when Elections Canada first approached Guelph Conservative campaign worker Andrew Prescott to ask about the “Pierre Poutine” robocall, national campaign manager Jenni Byrne emailed Prescott: “Please hold off doing anything until I consult with a lawyer.”
– In 2013, the party denied that it was behind a deceptive Saskatchewan push poll. The party acknowledged that it had contracted RackNine to conduct it only after the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia News linked the party to the call through voice analysis.
– Several key Conservative witnesses in the Guelph investigation have never agreed to speak to investigators. Campaign manager Ken Morgan now lives in Kuwait.
– In August 2012, an investigator asked Hamilton to set up interviews with party officials about calls outside Guelph. Hamilton took more than 90 days to do so.
– Federal Judge Richard Mosley, who found evidence of a “thinly scattered” voter suppression scheme in the 2011 vote, attacked the party for engaging in legal “trench warfare.” “Despite the obvious public interest in getting to the bottom of the allegations, the Conservative Party of Canada made little effort to assist with the investigation at the outset despite early requests.”
– Both Elections Canada and Hamilton were criticized for the fact that Hamilton sat in on interviews with witnesses in the Elections Canada investigation into the Guelph robocall although he was representing the party, not the witnesses.
Opposition MPs and critics suggest this amounts to a pattern of secretiveness and deception but the Conservatives say all of that amounts to little more than a smear campaign, and point to the conclusion of Elections Canada’s report.
“As we’ve said all along, and as Elections Canada has now determined, the Conservative Party of Canada ran a clean and ethical campaign,” said spokesman Hann. “For the last two years, the opposition parties have made unsubstantiated allegations which have now been proven to be false by Elections Canada.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: Stephen Maher
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