Robocalls registry will stay secret until after vote

The Conservative government created the Voter Contact Registry last year as part of the Fair Elections Act, in response to outrage over pre-recorded calls in Guelph that directed voters to the wrong polling location in the 2011 election.

The registry is now up and running but voters will have no way of consulting it to see if the calls they receive are legitimate until at least a month after the Oct. 19 election.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commissions (CRTC), which administers the registry, says it is prevented by law from disclosing the registry until 30 days after balloting.

“As the timing of the publication of the registration notices is specifically set out in the Fair Elections Act, the decision to publish the list after the elections was made by Parliament,” wrote spokesperson Patricia Valladao in an email.

Already, there have been 150 registrations filed with the CRTC to make live and pre-recorded voter-contact calls, Valladao said. The identities of the registrants, however, will not be known until November at the earliest.

That means voters who receive political calls will not be able to check to see if the callers are legitimate and registered with the CRTC.

Complaints have begun to trickle in, too. The CRTC says it has received nine complaints related to the voter contact registry and adds that it is “possible that additional complaints may have been submitted through the National Do Not Call List, which receives approximately 500 complaints each day.

“We continue to triage and assess the complaints submitted by Canadians.”

Phone-bank companies, candidates, political parties and other groups making calls using a service provider during the campaign are required to register within 48 hours of making their first call.

But there’s a big loophole: parties or candidates who make their own calls – rather than hire a private company – are not required to register. Local candidates, for example, can have volunteers make calls from phones within their campaign offices without having to sign up with the CRTC.

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper kicked off the election campaign on Aug. 2, there have been numerous accounts posted online of people receiving unsolicited calls from the “Voter Outreach Centre,” a name used by the Conservatives in calls to gauge support from potential voters.

These calls come from iMarketing Direct Solutions, the phone-bank company that made millions of voter identification and get-out-the-vote calls for the Tories in the 2011 election campaign.

Although these calls appear to be legal, there is no way for recipients to check with the CRTC to see if the company is registered.

A Conservative Party campaign worker, Michael Sona, was last year convicted under the Elections Act for his role in more than 7,000 “robocalls” sent to Guelph voters on voting day in the 2011 election, telling them their polling station had been moved.

The calls were launched from Edmonton call-centre RackNine Inc. using data extracted from the Conservative Party’s voter database, CIMS.

The registry was one in series of changes to the electoral law that were introduced under the Fair Elections Act. Critics contend many of the changes would disenfranchise some voters and give the Tories an advantage in the coming election.

The government never explained how a registry would have prevented the “Pierre Poutine” robocalls sent voters in Guelph, as the perpetrators went to great lengths to hide their identities.

The Conservatives have frequently argued against firearm registries, saying that they are not useful in prevent crime because criminals would not register their guns.

Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com/
Author:  Glen McGregor