ItOnlyTakesOne
DeniedVoterVille
Like lots of other folks out here on the Western edge of Lotusland, I wrote extensively about the misdirection calls that were targetted at progressive types that would most likely have voted against the conservative, Gary Lunn, in the riding of 'Saanich and the Islands' during the federal election of 2008.
In fact, after following this forward through 2011 and beyond, I came to view this 2008 conning of the progressives in Saanich to be essentially 'ground zero' in the Robo-Real Call-based assault on Canada's democratic process.
And I never understood why, after complaints had been filed with the Saanich police, the RCMP and Elections-Canada, that the investigation was suddenly halted (which, of course, likely only served to embolden any and all future 'potential' perpetrators).
Well.
It turns out that, while Elections Canada determined that calls misdirecting progressives to a no-longer existent NDP candidate (and therefore, 'potentially', away from Mr. Lunn's closest challenger Liberal/Greeniac Briony Penn), they decided it wasn't worth pursuing because they they couldn't demonstrate that an actual voter was actually, for absolutely for absolute crystal-clear sure, misled.
Which, in my view at least, was an egregious dereliction of duty on the part of Elections Canada given the demonstrable fraud involved, regardless.
But.
Leaving that aside for the moment....
In the latest revelations that voters contacted Elections-Canada from all over the country immediately before and after the 2011 election complaining that they had received misleading calls directing them to non-existent and/or the wrong polling stations, it turns out that there was at least one single, solitary voter who has stated, for absolute sure, that one such call led her NOT to cast her ballot.
Following up on more fine work from the McMaher duo from Postmedia, the CP's Jennifer Ditchburn has this specific part of the story:
...Despite being told to go to the wrong place to vote, most of the hundreds of people detailed in the (latest) court documents ignored the misleading messages and calls and went to the right place.
Still, at least one voter in Calgary North Centre said the location she was told to go to was too far away, and so she did not cast a ballot...
So.
It would appear that the 'no harm/no foul' excuses from E-Canada will no longer wash.
Which, in my opinion, means that the time has come to see some real legal action move forward immediately.
OK?
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The International Criminal Court Ruling
1 hour ago
11 comments:
What does it matter how you slice it? Canada is now, rotten to the core with corruption.
The Federal election was, dirtied, fouled, unfair and undemocratic. There was nothing honest about that election, what-so-ever. To most of us, Harper has no right to be the P.M. of this country. The election isn't even valid.
However, Harper as a dictator, pretty much controls every ministry in this province. Some member's of E-Canada, had suddenly "resigned"???? Harper installed one of his own in E-Canada, Yves Corte.
There is one thing you should know about our elected officials, provincial and federal.... you probably know that our Christy would like to hear from you, so too Stevie, but did you know that when you either are praising the elected, or ranting against the elected.... that they will ask you to fill in your Mailing address, phone number and your name....
No harm in doing that.... but it's what they don't tell. In a BC Rail Trial Document, and we've seen them on premier Christy Clark's online Fill-in-this-form documents as well... they are collecting your IP Address, covertly.
No big deal, right... our personal data is protected by the Privacy laws here in BC and Canada, except the BC Liberals are probably sharing that IP Address with big brother Stevie... like in the Robo Scandal.
An IP address linked to your mailing/email/phone number is a powerful tool when it comes to election time, IF you've praised them they will ignore you, if you've ranted at them, they will send you to the WRONG voting booth.
I live in that riding and received one of those calls. At the time it definitely felt like justice was not done over the robo-call. Cheating us of the truth sucked. Also the decision of Elections Canada to not re-do the ballots to not include the name of the dropped NDP candidate was ridiculous. They said there wasn't enough time to re-print ballots. Six weeks is not enough time?
Elections Canada is proving time and time again that the wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly and that will never change.
Anon-Above--
The rationale for not moving forward with the investigation really does seem bizarre to me...I mean, let's say there was some miscreant out their counseling people to eat babies...Even if no one had actually eaten a baby yet, wouldn't we want to stop said miscreant before somebody did.
Eat a baby (and/or steal another riding or 10), I mean.
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Hi Ross. All very plus ca change for us, huh?
Duff Conacher proved prophetic here in his remarks about Julian West having dropped out of the 2008 race and EC's decision not to pursue the voter fraud :
"If they are allowed to get away with this [in SGI] what happens if there's a case where the candidate is still there?"
PS Your link at "misled" doesn't go to any specific post.
Alison!
Ya.
And you all nailed it back then.
(link fixed - thanks).
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Yes, absolutely true: letting them get away with electoral cheating only encourages the bastards. Because of Lunn's suspect win in 2008, would-be cheaters probably wouldn't choose Saanich-Gulf Islands for a repeat performance. Breach of campaign financing rules hasn't cost Conservative MP Dean Del Monstro
his seat yet but he'll probably avoid getting caught a second time. And Robo calls? Gonna be a lot of scrutineers watching out for that one next time out, not that getting caught results in any meaningful deterrent. Like ballot-stuffing and overt corporal coercion, those are yesterday's scams; they served their purpose but now that everybody knows about them, it's time to employ other, less recognizable
electoral tricks. And the bastards have been getting encouraging results.
The recent court decision reinstating Etobicoke's MP after blatant voter ineligibility was exposed illustrates a disturbing development on an echelon high above ordinary election day shenanigans. Most glaring was the denial of plaintive's request for judicial recount . Instead the margin of victory, (found eventually to be even smaller than the original) was derived statistically from a sample of all votes in the riding and interpreted as reflective of the total count, an essential misconception of counting anything. Count the fingers on your hand; there are five fingers, absolutely five, not relatively five. One can't interpret the number five; it is five, that's all, absolutely. The voters of Etobicoke may or may not have gotten the MP they wanted but they were denied a recount absolutely. If this is a precedent, it is a dangerous one.
Hey look : Patient Zero Minus One.
Just an outpatient really but still.
I was looking around to see if SGI 2008 had any precedents and discovered Deep Climate had already been there first.
Thanks Alison.
Very, very interesting indeed.
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http://sixthestate.net/
Anon--
Definitely.
Have to get the 6th up on the sidebar - thanks for the prod.
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