Ethical election fraud

Dr. Dawg does Harper: I'm not a crook

and overnight the Cons "Ooopsie, another single solitary lone independently-operating rogue bad apple" story started to leak very badly.

Election Day deputy returns officer at Kitchener Centre speaks out on voting poll misdirection done under his watch.


And now RMG* call centre staffers in Thunder Bay are leaking too 
Conservative scripts misdirected voters in 2011 election

Callers on behalf of the federal Conservative Party were instructed in the days before last year’s election to read scripts telling voters that Elections Canada had changed their voting locations, say telephone operators who worked for a Thunder Bay-based call centre

“We’re sending people to the wrong place,” Desgagné recalled telling her supervisor and RCMP.

She says RCMP said there was "nothing they can do".

And although staffers calls to the public were monitored by a supervisor ...

"... workers shortened their script — although they weren’t supposed to — and said “... I’m calling from Elections Canada ...”

Earlier in the call centre campaign "if a person identified himself as Liberal or NDP, the agent punched a button to indicate he was not a Conservative supporter."

So. If only those Lib or NDP people were then singled out for call back on Election Day and misdirected to wrong or non-existent polling stations, that's flat out effing election fraud. 

*Responsive Marketing Group : “We work exclusively with right-of-centre campaigns to develop fundraising and voter contact strategies that target your message to the right audience, maximize your vote-getting, and win.”

Notable that Harper's former deputy chief of staff Patrick Muttart was on loan to Steve's election war room at the time from his new position with a stateside Republican PR company. You can check out Muttart's new boss' record on election dirty tricks in the US here.  

Superlative research job from The Sixth Estate : Hoax Phone Calls Reported in 42 Ridings During 2011 Election. Really excellent work.

And a reminder : Steve's majority holds by just 14 12 seats.
(Thanks, Dr. Dawg! for the correction : 12 seats, not 14.)
So far, six of those ridings are reporting dirty tricks on Election Day as of this morning.

Vancouver Sun : Judicial inquiry needed into election scandal
Yup.

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A few more links, because so far none of us has covered everything in one place :
Dave : Things to energize your outrage
Boris : What made you do it?
Dammit Janet! : Bad times, good times
Montreal Simon : The Bright Side of the Robo Con Scandal - with great toon
Also LeDaro's clever vid : Robocalls
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