Thursday, October 16, 2014

E-Day in Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling

Ten minute promotional video on an investigative documentary in production which previews preliminary interviews. from The Script & Film Co. on Vimeo.

Tomorrow, lone RoboCon fall-guy Michael Sona may find out whether he goes to jail for his part in the 6,000 illegal robocalls pretending to come from Elections Canada and wrongly telling voters their polling station had been moved. [Update : Sentencing now to be handed down on Nov. 19]

Yesterday, the Alberta Party candidate in the Calgary-Elbow byelection reported being targeted in a fraudulent robocall campaign that used a fake caller ID purporting to come from the Alberta Party :
“We started getting complaints from people receiving multiple phone calls throughout the day and some suggesting we had called them at 3 a.m. "
Sound familiar? It's not like this is going to get better on its own.

As Mulcair notes in the doc clip above, the Fair Elections Act (sic) is about "the Conservatives trying to put into law some of the cheating they'd been doing before."

Did you watch the clip? Wouldn't you like to hear Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor's reflections since their epic McMaher election fraud investigation?

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Peter Smoczynski : 
Election Day In Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling is an investigative documentary film which examines the sudden rise of voter suppression in Canada since the 2006 Federal Election to the Federal Election of 2011, its aftermath, Elections Canada investigations, court trials, its affect on Canadians and more recently the Fair Elections Act.
He has thousands of hours of footage and is looking for funding to do further research into the communities of highest voter suppression and finish editing it. 
So far his site has only received 1700 Canadian visits and 43 funders but as he says : "if every visitor gave $20, within five days this film is back in production"
His first donation was $5 from a 13 year old girl.


Come on, people - and I'm looking at you, you glittering twitterati and facebookies - spread the word and DONATE whatever you can. Let's get this doc out there to the public well before the shenanigans begin in the 2015 election.

h/t Saskboy
.

10 comments:

tjd said...

On my way to donate. But never forget the lesson from US elections: ratf*cking can take a million forms. Stamp out one, another will take its place.

Like so many things in our political system, you can never prevent shameless people from exploiting holes and grey zones in election laws. The only win is a public that's so repulsed by abuses that the abuses themselves become unthinkable.

I have no idea how to make that a reality.

the salamander said...

.. there is an extended 10 minute version of the promo.. via their Vimeo collection http://vimeo.com/108236106

The film as previewed in either version is exceptional.. top drawer production value. This is not the trashy amateur unpaid intern stuff of Harperama 24/7. Rather it is up there with 60 Minutes.. and more dramatic. Exceptional editorial and outstanding research

This film must make it to Canadian network television.. One wonders what network will have the courage.
Every Canadian should see the previews and the completed film.. including schoolchildren.

Alison said...

Thanks for that, Salamander. I replaced the 2 minute clip in the post with your suggested longer one - it gives a much better idea of the scope and quality.
Notable that Peter Smoczynski is going to follow up with those voters who gave very credible testimony that Elections Canada has apparently shelved.

Hi, tjd. I think ratfucking is here to stay now. At this point I'll settle for an electorate that punishes the perps with election losses for their candidates.

Anonymous said...

Hello Alison,

Thank you for your contribution.
If every person that visited the site had donated 25 dollars we'd be back in production yesterday and moving forward.
I keep telling people that the first person to donate to this campaign was a 13 year old girl...and her donation was five dollars.
I thought how appropriate because this documentary is as much about flushing out truth as it is to inform and education about the many forms of voter suppression.


Thank you for your help...
I have six weeks to turn this around...
And with people like yourself on side...
It can happen.


Peter

PETER SMOCZYNSKI

Producer/Director/Writer
Documentary Filmmaker

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting. Just began a long bus trip to work and won't be back til evening, but you can count on 20 bucks from my direction. Hopefully this film can have the punch that Holman's "Whipped" had. Voter fraud is definitely something that needs to be put under the microscope in this country and hopefully this documentary will make stephen herpes squirm like the snake he is.

Anonymous said...

As Harper is a control freak sociopath dictator, it is impossible to shame him. Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, had those same characteristics.

Besides which? Harper has bought up many ethnic votes. Harper sold Canada to Communist China. There will be more Chinese in Canada than Canadians. The Communist Chinese are pouring into Vancouver.

Harper's new low is? He is having the CRA investigating the bird watching society. I believe their budget is $16,000 per year. The bird people had the gall, to express their concern of the bees dying off. I guess Harper decided, we don't need the birds and bees to pollinate our food crops. After all, the bird watchers could be financing the anti-tar sands objectors.

I think the CRA should investigate, Laureen and Harper's cat sanctuary charity. They could be funding, the pro tar sands promoters.

Beijing York said...

I wish you all the best Peter with your incredible work.

I'm not sure I will make next month's rent so I can't donate at this moment but I will try in November.

In the meantime, I have posted this link with the encouragement to donate to all filmmaking and activist groups I'm associated with on Facebook as well as with individual filmmakers. I also requested that they share the message among their friends and colleagues. I hope this leads to some much needed funding.

Beijing York said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
susansmith said...

Done & donated.

Unknown said...

Like we already did not catch on in 2008 and 2011?

Shit kids give me a break three days ago Stephen Himself says in Parliament we are under imminent attack from self described isis terrorists?

Next day we have a kid hit and run two service men most fucking unfortunately for the Harper plan one died...

In one of its recent propaganda videos, ISIS called on Muslims to rise up and kill not only Americans, but French, Australian and Canadian citizens. It’s not clear if that was what was Harper was referencing in his remarks in the Commons.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/30/proposal-for-canadian-combat-mission-against-isis-coming-soon-stephen-harper-indicates/

Then next day???????????????

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/10/22/canada-under-attack-by-homegrown-terrorists

This is Harper's crusade against what he called infidels not ours:

So just like Hitler burned the then German Parliament called the "Reichstag" to gain imperial powers this shooting in our Parliament is Harper's "Reichstag" shit me not kiddies...

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/reichstagfire.htm

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