Posts Tagged ‘Nipissing-Timiskaming’

What happened in Thunder Bay?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 19, 2012 - 0 Comments

james.gregory/Flickr

As part of its challenge to the election results in seven ridings, the Council of Canadians has obtained (and now released) an affidavit from Annette Desgagne, a call centre worker with Responsive Marketing Group in Thunder Bay.

About 3 days before election day, the script changed in a manner that was noticeable to me. When a new script was being implemented, we would have to specifically log off and log back into the system. This time, the scripts we were to read to the listeners concerned changes to the locations of their polling stations. The new scripts we were to read did not identify that we were calling on behalf of the Conservative Party nor did we mention the local Conservative candidate…

I started to become concerned about the Change of Address Calls, because several listeners with whom I spoke, questioned me about the new polling location I was providing. For example, I recall one woman in Winnipeg telling me that the address I just gave her was over an hour away. I tried to problem solve this over the phone with her for a few minutes, but she was sure the new address was wrong. There was a phone number at the bottom of the screen in front of me that I was to give people if they had further questions. That lady said she had called that number but that it was not a correct number.

Elections Canada specifically asked all political parties to refrain from calling voters about changes to polling station locations. But Ms. Desgagne says she recalls calling voters in Nipissing-Timiskaming, where apparently no changes were made.

RMG says callers were scripted to identify themselves as calling from the party and that the calls weren’t specifically about changes to polling station locations. Continue…

  • The same kind of call

    By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 9, 2012 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

    The aforementioned Peggy Walsh-Craig of North Bay describes her experience.

    A long-time environmentalist and political advocate, she thought it was “a bit odd” when she received an automated phone call a few weeks prior to the spring 2011 federal election asking if she was planning to vote for the Conservative Party. “I was asked to press a number based on my answer,” Walsh-Craig said. “Generally you get survey calls during election campaigns, but they ask you a couple of questions and they are not generally as direct as this was requesting just a yes, no, how are you going to vote answer.”

    The week before the election her phone rang again. “This call was the one we’ve heard repeated over and over on the news,” she said, “telling me that due to higher than expected voter turnout my polling place had been changed.”

  • The curious case of Nipissing-Timiskaming

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 1:13 PM - 0 Comments

    The Globe considers the possibility of a court challenge in Nipissing-Timiskaming.

    Mr. Hagborg said local Liberal campaign staffers in Nipissing-Timiskaming initially didn’t think much of the bizarre flood of calls they got on election day from confused voters. In hindsight, he says, they probably should have acted more quickly. “We didn’t really think about it at the time. … We thought it was probably someone playing a practical joke or whatever.”

    Now, however, they’re collecting all the reports they can of voting-day interference. Mr. Hagborg said at least 25 complaints refer specifically to prerecorded messages, purportedly from Elections Canada, telling the recipients their polling station was changed. In some cases, residents in rural areas of the riding were sent 20 kilometres out of their way, only to find they were in the wrong place.

  • A wider and wider investigation

    By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 5, 2012 at 8:54 PM - 0 Comments

    Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that Elections Canada is investigating the expenses of the Conservative campaign in Guelph.

    Elections Canada investigators probing the robocalls scandal are interviewing workers on the Conservative campaign in Guelph, Ont., and trying to determine why payments made to an Edmonton voice-broadcasting company were not declared in financial reports filed with the agency…

    Elections Canada wants to know why the costs of automated calls the campaign has admitted sending out never appeared in the campaign’s expense report, as required by law.

    The Star reports that Elections Canada is now investigating calls in Nipissing—Timiskaming

  • Two recounts

    By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 12:12 PM - 4 Comments

    There will be two automatic recounts—in Etobicoke Centre where the Conservative candidate beat a Liberal incumbent by 26 votes and in Nipissing-Timiskaming where the Conservative candidate beat a Liberal incumbent by 14 votes.

From Macleans