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rfmcdonaldDon't you miss the days when people committng nefarious deeds would at least try to be sneaky? I miss that kind of respect.
A telephone number used to place automated calls directing voters to the wrong polling station in Guelph, Ont., in the last federal election was registered to a "Pierre Poutine" of Separatist Street, Joliette, Que., court documents reveal.
The documents also show a link between the national Conservative campaign to the call centre through which the automated calls were made.
The documents were sworn by an Elections Canada investigator and filed in Edmonton court to get a production order for Racknine, the call centre used to make the robocalls. A production order requires documents to be made available to law enforcement officials within a specified time.
The allegations contained in the document have not been tested in court.
The investigator is looking into allegations somebody claiming to be from Elections Canada telephoned people in Guelph and falsely told them their polling stations had moved.
Records obtained from Bell Canada "identified the phone 450-760-7746 subscriber as 'Pierre Poutine of Separatist Street, Joliette, Que.'," according to the sworn production order.
That number, which belongs to a disposable cellphone, appeared on the call display of voters who received the incorrect polling station information.
[. . .]
The documents show Elections Canada is investigating whether somebody wilfully prevented or tried to prevent electors from voting, or whether somebody tried to persuade voters not to vote for a particular candidate. Both are offences under the Elections Act.
Someone using phone numbers of Marty Burke's Conservative campaign in Guelph called Racknine 31 times between March 26 and May 5, 2011, indicating his campaign used the company's services, the documents say. But there is no expense listed for Racknine in the expenses filed by Burke's campaign team.
Burke filed $87,361.60 in expenses, investigator Allan Mathews notes.
"The return does list [two] other, Ontario-based service providers whose business includes voice-broadcasting services and other telephone work; Campaign Research at $6,215.00 and RMG [Responsive Marketing Group] at $15,000.00," Mathews says in the filing.
Payments to those companies are consistent with the number of people he interviewed who reported "repeated campaign and voter survey survey calls from the Burke campaign," Mathews notes.
