The Sixth Estate

The more cynical readers of this blog will doubtless be unsurprised, but I think that the recent shambles of a “public consultation” embarked upon by Elections Canada is strong evidence that the organizations is conceding its investigation into the 2011 election robocalls,  does not intend ever to charge someone with vote suppression (least of all the individual behind “Pierre Poutine”), and instead plans to engage in a grand exercise in theatrical arm-waving in the hopes that public opinion in the agency’s demonstrably negligible capacity to regulate Canadian elections will be restored.

Elections Canada is working towards what will supposedly be a Grand Report on the issue of electrion fraud tabled in the spring. To that end, it’s engaging in public consultations with respect to a draft report proposing some tweaking to the electoral accountability laws. We’ll get to those tweaks momentarily.

The fact that Elections Canada seems to think we’ve progressed from the “investigation” phase of the robocalls file to the “lessons learned” stage, as symbolized in this new policy paper, tells us all we need to know about the agency’s investigation of the robocalls. There was an investigation — we know there was — but it was under-resourced and consequently slow and ineffectual. If Elections Canada expected this to end in formal charges being laid, we’d have to have another round of “lessons learned” reports, and policy proposals, to close off whatever schemes would have been identified over the course of the investigation. It’s unlikely Elections Canada plans to engage in two such rounds of consultations. This is it. Consequently, whoever did commit electoral fraud in 2011 has definitively gotten away with it. Unless they decide to come forward themselves, for some reason, which seems unlikely.

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Update: See table below.

The evidence is increasing that there has been a systematic effort in certain regions to deceive people and to prevent them from voting — although not a universal one, certainly, since I was not affected and I imagine that most other ridings weren’t either. Nevertheless, one or more groups have been contacting people in large numbers — using devices like automated calls and fake Elections Canada phone contacts, so clearly this isn’t just a couple of teenagers having some fun — and informing them that their voting location has changed to some other address. Invariably it hasn’t. People voting today are reminded to trust only Elections Canada when finding their voting place.

But tomorrow, I think there absolutely must be a full investigation. Obviously progressives have an opinion about who is behind these phone calls. Only one party has consistently argued that this election is unnecessary, and only one party has brought in election consultants from the American Republican campaigns which have, it must be said, used exactly the same sorts of tactics (right down to the supposedly changed voting booths and the last-minute sex scandals). And we know that Tories use robocalls — among other things, to tell seniors, quite implausibly, that the NDP will take away everybody’s pensions. But I’m going to avoid casting judgement for now and just say that we need to know who is responsible, whomever they may be. Right now.

Here are my collected list of reports so far. I would like to make a list of these allegations. Three of the first four on this list come from CBC, and one of them comes straight from Elections Canada. But I am interested in links to anything that would qualify for the list:

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I had a robo call from the Conservative party reminding me to vote in my riding of Sydney-Victoria. I live in South Shore-St. Margarets, a swing riding where the Conservative incumbent is in trouble. Innocent mistake? Incompetence? Intention to confuse?

You can judge as well as I can, but Elections Canada says there are quite a number of ridings around the country where people are being given false information about where to vote. So double-check before you go. Elections Canada will tell you where to go.

And shame on whoever is responsible for spreading the misinformation.