Anatomy of a Vote Suppression Operation
I will be out of touch for most of the day, and if I’m lucky, by the time I get back to my computer this evening, the culprits will have been fully outed. (I’m not holding my breath, mind you.) In the meantime, thanks to the updates processed last night, the Sixth Estate Vote Suppression List now totals 68 ridings — more than one in five ridings across the country. My list is the largest on the Internet, including reports from all media and party sources. I also encourage anyone to submit stories of their own to SixthEstateCanada@gmail.com, either by name or anonymously.
In the meantime, I’d like to go over how this scheme must have worked. For the moment we can set aside who is responsible. I have my theories, and you have yours, and I’ll close with that. First of all, it’s important to differentiate between three types of calls, all of which have now been proved beyond doubt.
The first kind are what I would call mischief calls: live calls and robocalls by deliberately rude callers, at all hours of the night, targeting Jewish voters repeatedly during the Sabbath, etc. These are present in the vast majority of the ridings on the list, and with only one possible exception, all of the calls in question claimed to be from the Liberal Party. We don’t have to speculate much about the motivation for these calls: making the Liberal Party look bad in the run-up to the election would be to the benefit of other parties.
It’s easy to dismiss these in the light of the other allegations, but we shouldn’t do so. The pesky regulations requiring party operatives to identify themselves at the end of every campaign ad, etc., are there for a reason: they prohibit precisely this sort of shenanigans. If this were the only part of the scheme, it would still be disturbing. It would still be American. It would still be reprehensible. But the Conservatives probably would be able to laugh it off as “freedom of speech,” the same way they claim a right to bombard a riding with “opinion poll” calls informing them that their Liberal MP is a scoundrel and about to resign. That little scam, by the way, is under separate investigation.
The second part of the scheme involved a combination of live calls and robocallls, both of them informing voters that the voting locations had been switched at the last moment and directing them to new locations, almost invariably to ones that were on the other side of town, an hour’s drive away, etc. The live calls were allegedly sent by, among other places, workers at a Responsive Media Group call centre in Thunder Bay, ON.
The second set, the ones which have received most of the press, were an unknown number of robocalls sent out via, among other services, an outfit called Racknine in Alberta. Racknine is a service provider only; they probably had no more idea what was going out over their robodialling network than the desk officer at your ISP does that you’re reading Sixth Estate. In the case of the calls which went out to the Guelph riding, the arrangements were made by someone using a Quebec-registered cell phone identified by the unlikely name “Pierre Poutine” — apparently a riff on the name of an eatery in Guelph. Judging from the court filings, Elections Canada is pretty sure that the Guelph operation was done by a Conservative insider.
Although it seems like Elections Canada is closing on the Guelph operation, I must stress at this point that Guelph was not an isolated swindle. The large proportion of the ridings on my list are ones where misdirection robocalls are alleged to have gone out. That doesn’t mean that someone in the Guelph office couldn’t have been involved. It does mean, however, that they were only a bit player in a much wider conspiracy.
I have seen quite a number of comments by well-intentioned people suggesting that this doesn’t make for a very impressive scheme because, after all, everyone would have suffered equally. Not so. Every political party has a list of registered voters, which they supplement with massive information-gathering activities.
The Conservative Party’s system is widely reported to be the largest. Every time you write a Conservative MP, every time you respond to a poll arranged by the party or simply call for a ride to the polling station, that gets logged on your file in the database. That database is called CIMS, and it has a file on every one of us. Most are presumably empty files, but during the election, the party made millions of telephone calls to identify supporters and opponents. All of that went into CIMS. CIMS is actually online, but without a password, you won’t be able to have much fun with it. You can, however, peruse an old users’ guide recently leaked to the press. CIMS, or at least that version of CIMS, assigned every Canadian a score between -15 (rabid opponent of the party) and 15 (dedicated supporter).
Once the databases are involved, it’s a simple matter of sending out the robocalls only to the people you’ve identified as suspected opposition people, and sparing your own. Inevitably there will be some mistakes in such a process — which might be where Dean Del Mastro’s complaints come in — but in general, any system capable of getting you into mass contact with those you think are your friends (which is what the Conservatives freely admit their system can do) pretty much by definition can get you into mass contact with your suspected enemies just as easily.
It might not have been the Conservatives, of course. Pretty much by definition, the only organization with the resources and the motivation to pull off this fraud must be a political party. The only political party which has invested massive funds in both the surveillance database and the telemarketing structure necessary to pull off such a heist is the Conservative Party. And the Conservatives are also the only party whose present leadership has already been convicted of previous violations of the Elections Act.
The Opposition, and the progressive blogging community, is beginning to muse about by-elections. I would urge them not to do so. The first and only priority of the country at this point must be identifying what happened and who did it. Demanding by-elections before we know what went wrong with the first poll only means that those responsible will be left free to work their mischief a second time. We don’t have time to talk about by-elections right now.
And then, we must subject them to the full force of law and of public opinion. We’re treading into truly disturbing territory here, regardless of what party was involved. Intentionally accomplishing this task in multiple ridings, rather than just Guelph, would mean creating essentially a shadow campaign team, one specifically intended to run the phone ops. There are plenty of partisans without a shred of moral sense in the Conservative Party, but there are also plenty of people who think they’re doing right by their country. If you’re planning a criminal enterprise, you have to keep it separate from that second group to make sure word doesn’t leak.
That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, mind you. Over the past year, there has been a second cover-up. Even if the Harper brain trust wasn’t in on the original robocall scheme, as soon as scattered reports of the scheme surfaced last spring, you can be sure they would have had someone trusted get involved and get to the bottom of it, so they would be able to contain the outcry if word ever leaked. So they have certainly had a pretty good idea what happened for almost a year now, even if they weren’t involved to begin with, and they’ve been quietly sitting on that information since the election.
There is a scheme in this mess somewhere. I just wish I could see what it was.
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saskboy
One technological question I don’t have an answer for, is was the robocall customized for each riding, and if so, how were there only two calls to Racknine from Poutine’s burner cell phone?
http://www.globalregina.com/pierre+poutine+went+to+great+lengths+to+protect+identity+elections+canada/6442591112/story.html
Bill McKinnon
During the days leading up to the May 2nd General Election, I received at least four calls from political parties. These included two robocalls from the Conservative Party placing me in the riding of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour and a human call from the NDP asking me to vote for the NDP candidate in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour. At the time of the robocalls, I did not realize they were from the Conservatives so they did not ask for my vote so I incorrectly assumed they were from the NDP but I later learned the NDP did not use robot calls in that riding.
The thing is, I live in Sackville-Eastern Shore – not Dartmouth-Cole Harbour. The woman from the NDP blamed me for the error but why? I have lived and voted in Sackville-Eastern Shore in the two previous Federal Election and my phone number has not changed in eight years so I cannot understand how it was my fault she phoned me and how come the robocall from the Liberal Party placed me in the correct riding as did Elections Canada when I voted in this and the two previous Federal elections.
My experience with calls from parties did not seem to involve any fraudulent intent – just an error on the list used by two parties, the Conservatives and the NDP. Sackville-Eastern Shore is not a swing riding since the NDP have held it by a substantial margin for many years. The riding of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour is a swing riding but the swing is between the NDP and the Liberals – not the Conservatives so they would likely gain little or nothing by obstructing voters in either riding.
Sixth Estate
There is no question that party lists can be wrong and that errors can crop up in those circumstances. The allegations which are being discussed federally involve people being sent to the wrong polling station, not confusion about which ridings people are in. It would be interesting to know what address they have on file for you (i.e. whether it is the correct one).
saskboy — Logically, if there were multiple customized misdirection calls, they were not all placed from the same cell phone.
Beijing York
Don’t forget that some of the annoyance/mischief calls were traced back to North Dakota. RackNine and Responsive Media Group are just two of number of potential service providers.
Campaign Research Inc. were responsible for the Irwin Cotler calls. They are also the most widely known as Conservative campaigning experts given some of their direct activities with Ontario Conservatives. They might have provided the over-arching strategy. It could very well be another party – but I definitely think there was a deliberate and well orchestrated vote suppression plan at play.
lin black
a simple solution . and it satisfies conservative morals ! waterboard peeky towes/
Sam Gunsch
One possible reason I’ve seen discussed for calls being placed to ridings that were not even close to being swing ridings:
In the event the vote suppression phone calls were detected as they have been, this would avoid leaving an obvious pattern of only targeting your ‘best-chance’ ridings where you have a chance of winning, in the event your robocall suppression strategy actually assisted in winning most of them.
Imagine the scenario that the calls had targetted only the top 15 or so ridings that were most obviously up for grabs, and the Conservatives had won most of them. And the news coverage and Sixth Estate’s tables showed that pattern. Game-over clarity.
Paying to do robocalls across 40 – 50 ridings, when you only intend it to contribute to success in 15 or so is easily feasible because 1) very inexpensive per call, less than 2 pennies per according to Racknine in one newpaper report I read and 2) the CIMS system could easily generate robocalls for whatever ratio of calls you want… e.g. 10000 names in close ridings and only a 1000 names in ridings not in jeopardy, i.e. concentrate the effort where it counts and throw enough calls into additional ridings with a variety of profiles in the event that you get caught out by lots of citizens complaining and drawing Elections Canada’s attention.
One analysis that would add evidence for this suggested pattern and rationale:
As data becomes available… over time it might become clear from pattern of complaints that the expensive live phone calls by people from call rooms were mostly targeting the ridings that were assessed to be in play, where Conservatives either had a good chance of taking away opposition held seats, or in riding the Conservatives incumbents might be in jeopardy.
I think I saw a figure of $30-$35/hour for call room calling reported. If there are few live calls into ridings that were foregone conclusions, I think it would add weight to the diversionary approach using robocalls.
In general:
One of Warren Kinsella posts included the theory that because the Conservatives have more money than god, it’s feasible for this kind of sub-campaign to have been given a trial run.
Specifically:
Throwing robocalls into ridings where it couldn’t make enough of a difference is basically a ‘muddy the waters’ strategy, which Chantal Hebert allowed that in theory someone could have been this Machiavellian, but like many other columnists, doubts it very much and has mostly expressed doubt about how widespread the calling in significant numbers appears to be.
I personally believe Hebert and others taking this line are underestimating the appeal of the inexpensiveness of the robocalls with respect to doing the muddy the waters add-on calls.
And isn’t this kind of tactic to mislead your opposition is common in warfare so that even after the fact the opposition misreads where you were strong and where you were actually bluffing.
Sam Gunsch
Robocalls as low as 1.9 cents per minute…
excerpt:
Those pre-recorded phone messages lack the personal touch but they’re dirt cheap. Based on RackNine’s lowest rate of 1.9 cents per minute, a one-minute call to 10,000 people would cost a client just $190.
http://www2.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=6218645
Sam Gunsch
Media coverage today re possible diversionary phone calls:
“allegedly convenient cover” for ” perhaps more nefarious voter suppression calls”
Conservative war room boss Lietaer questioned by CBC on this issue.
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Politics/Power_&_Politics/1305400780/ID=2203780543
For the broader context on this issue leading up the key “cover” question start watching at 7:24m
8:29 is start of key question put to Lietaer
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Politics/Power_&_Politics/1305400780/ID=2203780543
Saskboy
I don’t have enough information, or haven’t found sources, or time to pour through it all to confirm if there were customized misdirection phonecalls across the country. Oh to have the potential resources of the RCMP right now… (pre-C-30 is more than sufficient).
It sounds like the burner cell of Poutine was only used twice? How could that be? There may be another phone, or IP number to trace if more customized misdirection calls were robodialed.
And how were the phone numbers taken from the voter list database, and given to RackNine and other firms? There are more opportunities for RCMP to trace the source.
Based on what I do know, there was a specific fake/wrong polling call (two actually) made to a voter in Regina Lumsden Lake Centre, and a different fake poll in the robocall to Guelph. How were multiple recordings provided to RackNine and other robodialiers, if the burner Poutine phone made two only? (Regina Lumsden calls are not specified as robo or human, only that the destination was different from the place in Guelph, St. Angela was given as the poll.)
==
Sam, based on that pricing, if we assume 70 ridings were called, at 10,000 people each, that’s only about $13000 to steal an election.
The NDP, Greens, and Liberals could fund robocalls next week for that pricing to inform Canadians more quickly about the scandal!
Example:
“During the last federal election, many Canadians got recorded phone calls with fraudulent information. The CPC voter database was used to dial opposition party voters, and illegally redirect them away from polling stations. Contact your Member of Parliament if this conspiracy to rig Canada’s elections concerns you.”
Sam Gunsch
@Saskboy said…And how were the phone numbers taken from the voter list database, and given to RackNine and other firms?
=============
See Solomon question Listaer at 5:29m on this…
From Listaer’s answer, could be literally hundreds of people with access to CIMS.
… then easy-peasy … re skills widespread to hack internal security walls to get whatever required…and the right passwords lead to instructions about security walls, no hacking required…
On the other hand, I take that smear back… remember, the Conservatives would never countenance any unethical hacker types within their insider networks. So for sure Conservative national office has no need to worry about any records existing of anyone accessing CIMS and downloading dozens of ridings data. Would never happen. Ignore my theory.
I’m Unsubstantiated.
re other firms beyond Racknine
… maybe phonecalls will eventually be traced to other companies that so far escaped detection because the existing limited Election Canada and RCMP resources appear to have been devoted to Guelph.
And USA companies are probably in the loop given the media reports of calls and texts from the USA…
see 2 excerpts below.
And if USA robocall outfits are involved… Elections Canada and RCMP may need to ask Anonymous for help…
because my guess about USA robocallers:
*Professionals* at evading detection given the pervasiveness of dirty tricks during elections down there. Maybe somebody in the Obama administration will help us though, by returning the favor Harper’s crew did for Harper in 2008 primary campaigning. That’d be sweet. Karma.
=============
http://www.canada.com/news/More+than+dozen+ridings+blitzed+harassing+fake+Liberal+phone+calls+2011+election/6206603/story.html
Across the country, other campaigns were getting similar reports: fake Liberals calls. The call display often showed a North Dakota telephone number — 701-509-8703 — which Internet message boards show is often used for fraudulent credit card scams.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=6227060&sponsor
“…call logs show the phone received six text messages from numbers in Anaheim and Pasadena, California. The originator is a mystery. “I cannot account for these calls at present,” Mathews’ statement says.”
Saskboy
“Tom Flanagan, described by a Tory campaign veteran as “the godfather of CIMS,” says his cherished database is getting a bad rap.
“It’s completely non-sinister,” ”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/robo-call-furor-focuses-attention-on-massive-tory-database/article2354727
Holly Stick
Oh well, we can trust what Flanagan says…not.
I think Sam has a good explanation for the widespread calls. They are probably muddying the waters but in addition maybe testing out their database with an eye to future elections. And since they learn from US politics, they could pick up whatever Machiavellian ideas the US political wanks have come up with.
Meanwhile they attack environment groups for supposed ‘foreign influence’. Again, typical to accuse others of what they are doing.
Sixth Estate
I think Sam’s explanation is possible, but I think it makes much more sense to conclude that someone drew up a master list of people to call without necessarily paying attention to which ridings to target. Then they had local reps, like “Pierre Poutine,” submit the orders. As with In & Out, some ridings were involved; some weren’t. Otherwise the distribution is simply too haphazard.
Sam Gunsch
@Sixth said: “I think it makes much more sense to conclude that someone drew up a master list of people to call without necessarily paying attention to which ridings to target”
====
and I’d absolutely go with you on that upon reflection.
… my nature biases me to forget Occam’s Razor.
Or at least assume less competence first or incompetence rather than default to assuming ‘thoughtful, considered, cunning’ on the part of the individuals who actually did this.
Thus my hypothetical scenario is probably a product of over-thinking aspects of the how and imputing to much cleverness to the why.
And likewise, my blog posts could be less wordy, if I kept Occam in mind, i.e. law of parsimony, economy or succinctness.
Janice
Don’t get too hung up on the caller id’s that look like they came from Colorado until more information is available. Caller ID spoofing is very easy (esp might I add if you’re a call centre, since you are handling calls for many different customers in many different locales). Illegal in Canada, but still possible. And, if the schemer or schemers behind this wanted to evade detection (to which the burn phone purchased under a fake name and used solely to contact RackNine certainly attests) spoofing the Caller ID would be right up there as a tactic.
What was really sly was choosing the Caller ID of a company whose name is the same (or very similar) to one in Canada. (This story is just full of lovely twists and turns isn’t it?)
So, I’d not assume those calls people thought were from Colorado really were from there just yet.
Another thing I’d like to point out is there definitely was a close relationship between RackNine and the Conservatives. Especially the Ontario Conservative Party. This can be observed, if one is a member of LinkedIn by looking at the profile of one Michael D’Agostino a Voter Contact Manager for the OCP and then at who it was that wrote the recommendation that appears on his profile. I believe elsewhere in the blogosphere it has been concluded that far from the first statements given by RackNine’s CEO to the effect that the company runs hundreds of campaigns for all kinds of parties, they in fact only do business with the Conservatives (unsure whether National or only provincial levels, though) and the Wildrose (provincial party in Alberta only).
The financial documents that have surfaced so far are again looking dodgy. Perhaps an attempt to conceal the fact that RackNine was running a lot of call campaigns for the Cons? We’ll know soon I think.
And, you’re right Chantal Hebert is underestimating the tactics involved and overestimating what it would cost for the gain the schemers would realize. Robo-calls are fast and can be deployed without pesky human witnesses. Deploying calls in seemingly random ridings would have the advantage of clouding the picture. A well known tactic to those versed in internet stealth operations. Cloaking real traffic with random ‘filler’ traffic (on the ‘net) keeps anyone watching for changes from detecting when a network is being used. It would not surprise me in the least to learn that some of the people behind the scenes are young people to whom these kinds of techniques would be obvious.
This snowball is rolling pretty fast now, something’s got to give soon. I just hope they are able to prove who planned the thing as well as executed it and punish the lot of them to the full extent allowed under the law. This is a terrible stain on Canada’s international reputation.
That this majority government has decided to act with impunity to shackle Elections Canada at exactly the time this scandal is breaking is also damning. I am referring to the refusal by the majority (Cons) to grant the Commissioner of Canada Elections the increased powers of investigation into expense spending he requested after this past election. The denial was the result of a secret vote that took place in Feb 2012 in which the Cons held the majority and defeated the other members from other parties who all voted in favour of the request. Immediately after that, Elections Canada started accepting applications for the position of … Commissioner. Really. Check out their web site. The story about this last bit is at the end of this article (last five paragraphs) from Postmedia http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Elections+Canada+probe+annoying+political+calls+told/6229034/story.html
Sam Gunsch
re anonymity, US robocalling companies
“Experts say dirty-trick phone calls are usually placed from U.S. call centres or sent from hard-to-trace devices, but that “Pierre Poutine” made “comical errors,” including using the same cellphone to set up a robo-call account and then list its number on the ensuing fraudulent calls.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/sloppy-work-by-pierre-poutine-leaves-lengthy-trail-for-robo-call-sleuth/article2356332/?service=mobile
A U.S. expert on political black ops said the basic goal is to remain anonymous.
“When you make scurrilous attacks against your opponents, you always try to keep it on the down low,” author Joe Cummins said in an interview.
One person collaborating with the Elections Canada investigation into “Pierre Poutine” added: “Whoever did this is quite unsophisticated.” ”
possible tags?: arrogance, unforced errors, puck in your own net, Keystone cons.
Sam Gunsch
re American company used by Jason Kenny (no report it was robocalling company)
Jason Kenney’s campaign used a US company during the election. But CBC didn’t say whether it was a robocall company or not.
CBC reports at 3:56m on the National, March 1.
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/1233408557/ID=2204495053
This report was from Terry Milewski as he concluded his National piece on the Conservatives failed attack on Liberals re connecting Lib’s to US Dakota company. He held up an invoice for Kenney’s campaign documenting Con’s use of US company. Which BTW, I’m quite sure, Con’s have said never happened. Forget where I heard that. Maybe DD Mastro…
Sam Gunsch
re: robocalls and Anonymity: Very discouraging expert commentary…
CBC’s the Current, this morning 2 March,
a USA expert re robocalls:
a) virtually untraceable
(cited an example of calls against Hillary Clinton that were never exposed)
b) cost of calls is so low, not a barrier at all to do large numbers
Whoever did this is not sweating as much as the citizenry might hope.
Phooey.
And a more optimistic not on the CBC news just now:
31,000 Canadians have contacted Elections Canada. wow.
a guess: Market value of the ruling corporation’s ‘law and order’ brand may have peaked.
Sam Gunsch
re: Cost of robocalls, higher than previously reported,
see flowchart/costs of Racknine robocall system here:
http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/ott0222-robocalls-21.jpg
1. update and clarification re costs in Edm Jnl article I pointed to in previous post.
Actually; 1.9 cents to 3.5 cents per minute. Not per call.
But as per US expert Interviewed on the Current, March 2, still so very low, robocalls are here to stay.
Nathan
The most frustrating part of all this is that it’s just so difficult to actually gather evidence in the matter. There’s such a huge disconnect between the people who were affected, and where the record of wrong doing begin.
Mogs
On the lighter side a little poem for your amusement:
Harper’s Land and the Roving Polling Stations,
A Magical Mysterious Act: Election 2011!
He’s building really big jails,
And soon it’ll be filled with the wails,
The shrieks of a dying Democracy,
Soon we’ll be a Harper Autocracy,
Harper land is definitely here,
The voting fraud makes it ever so clear,
Canada is gone forever,
Unless we all shout “NEVER”!
The F-35’s he’ll use on us,
It will be like we’ve been hit by a Libyan bus,
That is if we give him a chance,
So now we must kick him in the pants,
It’s time to say goodbye,
We know Steve gave it a try,
But, Harper you’re beginning to smell,
So it’s time that you said farewell.
Steven Harper you’ve gone way to far,
You think our heads are empty like a jar,
But we’ve caught you red-handed,
And now it looks like you’ve landed,
In a terrible mess,
Now c’mon just fess,
Up to the fact,
That you orchestrated this act!
And because of that,
You will never get fat,
At the hogs trough political,
Because we aim to cut your umbilical,
So you’ll never again be able,
To sit at the con party table,
No sir not ever again,
You won’t be allowed to campaign!
We’ll march two-four abreast,
We’ll put Harper to the test,
We’ll call it the Canadian spring,
We’ll have a really good fling,
We’ll march on Parliament Hill,
We’ll get rid of that shill,
Who calls himself the prime minister,
Since really he’s evil and sinister.
Know anyone that can put this to music?
I AM a Righteously Pissed CANADIAN.
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