We’re talking about an attempt to undermine the electoral process. That’s more serious than the Senate scandal. That’s about as serious as scandals get.
The Federal Court ruled last week that electoral fraud occurred in the last election but the judge provided no evidence as to who was the culprit. He pointed to a concerted campaign by a person or persons who had access to the Conservative Party’s database.
But the judge said he could make no finding that the Conservatives were directly behind the operation. That’s a significant statement; Conservatives, who have denied involvement all along, are triumphantly repeating it all over town. You can hardly blame them for that.
But the judge found no proof they weren’t behind the fraud either. To conclude they were not involved you’d have to believe that some rogue operator, unbeknownst to the campaign team, got access to the Tories’ highly-protected database and had the skills and know-how to operate it and set up a robocalls operation targeting non-Conservative voters.
That’s possible. There are some very efficient hackers out there. But is it probable?
Here’s what we know. We know that a former Conservative campaign staffer has been charged by Elections Canada over misleading robocalls sent to voters in Guelph, Ont. in the 2011 campaign. Michael Sona’s case is to be heard starting the end of the month. Sona, who says he is innocent and is being scapegoated, has referred in a CBC interview to “a massive scheme” in which he was not involved.
We know that in the past the Conservatives have been caught up in electoral dirty tricks for which they have faced charges — the ‘in-and-out’ affair being an example. We know they have been involved in robocall campaigns against opponents, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler being one. We know Elections Canada is investigating vote suppression in the 2011 campaign — via robocalls and other means — in more than 100 ridings.
We know that that the Federal Court judge was scathing in his denunciation of how the Tories tried to block his trial’s progress and also that he determined their attacks on pollster Frank Graves were unfounded.
We know that in the 2008 election there were mysterious developments in the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. Midway through that campaign, the NDP candidate, Julian West, dropped out. But his withdrawal did not come in time to get his name off the ballot.
At dinnertime on election eve, an automated phone message went out urging constituents to vote, strangely enough, for Mr. West. He ended up receiving six per cent of the vote, which isn’t bad for a non-candidate. Most of those votes likely would have gone to the other prominent progressive candidate on the ballot, the Liberal. As it turned out the Liberal candidate lost narrowly to Conservative Gary Lunn.
Questions arose immediately afterward as to the source of the robocalling. It likely wouldn’t have been the Liberals urging constituents to vote for the NDP. It likely wouldn’t have been New Democrats urging people to vote for their non-candidate. Some Tories claimed the Dippers did the calling in order to profit from the per-vote subsidy in effect at the time. But setting up the calling system probably would have cost more than the subsidy was worth.
Elections Canada took a look at the situation but was unable to determine the source of the calls. The calling operation would have required someone with money, with a voter ID list, with a call centre, with a lot of expertise. Adding to suspicions was the fact that, among the parties, the Conservatives had the most sophisticated and well-financed electoral operation.
When the news of the alleged robocalling in the 2011 campaign broke, opposition parties, recalling the case of Saanich-Gulf Islands, expressed the view than what happened in Saanich may well have been a robocalls pilot project.
Of course there are other possibilities — one being that there was a rogue operator at work back then as well, and that the Conservative electoral machine didn’t know about this person. Just like in last year’s campaign.
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