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UPDATE: Our challenge against alleged voter suppression so far

Steven Shrybman, Garry Neil

This series of excerpts from various Postmedia News stories over the past two months provides an overview narrative of the Council of Canadians intervention against alleged voter suppression.

March 1 – the questionnaire
“The Council of Canadians is urging individuals with evidence of dirty tricks in the past federal election to join the group’s legal push to have results thrown out in ridings most affected by misleading robocalls. Garry Neil, executive director, said individual Canadians have the legal right to take action against electoral fraud, and that the council will provide the tools and the support needed to exercise these rights to the fullest. …‘We are seeking out electors who believe that fundamentally their democratic rights have been violated,’ he said. ‘We invite Canadians who have knowledge of, and were affected by any of these dirty tricks, to contact us immediately.’ …Neil said the council will distribute a questionnaire to ‘a significant number of Canadians in each of the affected ridings,’ focusing on 20 ridings where poll margins were close…”

March 27 – the legal applications
“A citizen advocacy group is asking the Federal Court of Canada to overturn election results in seven ridings where telephone dirty tricks may have kept voters away from the polls. The Council of Canadians says pre-recorded robocalls and live calls influenced the outcome of votes in closely fought races in British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon and Ontario. The group is backing the first legal challenge of election results since the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia News revealed ongoing Elections Canada investigations into misleading election day calls in Guelph and other ridings. The organization’s lawyers filed four applications in court on Friday and was due to file three more Monday, all seeking have the results of the votes set aside.”

April 18 – Annette Desgagne
“In an affidavit released Wednesday, Annette Desgagne said in the last few days before the May 2 election, scripts for callers at the Responsive Marketing Group’s Thunder Bay phone bank instructed them to identify themselves as calling from the ‘Voter Outreach Centre’ and tell voters about last-minute changes Elections Canada had made to polling stations. One caller, Desgagne claimed, identified himself as calling from Elections Canada. …Desgagne, who began working in the Thunder Bay call centre about three weeks before the election, says for her first few weeks on the job, workers at the phone bank were engaged in voter-identification calls. About three days before the election, Desgagne says, the scripts she was reading off a computer screen were changed to change-of-address calls.”

April 20 – Bob Penner
“An ‘expert witness’ for the Council of Canadians … concludes in a sworn affidavit someone at a senior level of the Tory campaign must have authorized automated phone calls that sent some voters to the wrong polling stations during the 2011 federal vote. ‘The only plausible explanation for such calling to have occurred is for someone at the senior level in a central political campaign to have authorized the strategy and provided the data and the funds with which to carry it out,’ the affidavit says. It was filed by Bob Penner, president and CEO of Strategic Communications Inc. …Council of Canadians executive director Garry Neil … said Penner will play the role of ‘expert witness’ in the matter.”

April 23 – filing sixteen affidavits
“Lawyer Steven Shrybman said he has been frustrated in trying to deliver documents on behalf of the advocacy group Council of Canadians… Shrybman claims Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton refused on Friday to accept service of new evidence in the case when it was delivered to his Toronto law firm – a claim the party rejects. Hamilton represents the seven Conservative candidates whose victories are being challenged by the council. ‘The process server showed up and I guess met with the receptionist and Arthur said I’m not accepting service on behalf of my clients,’ Shrybman said. …There is no witness testimony in Federal Court and all evidence is submitted via affidavits – sworn statements – that must be served on the other parties. But it seems unlikely a lawyer’s refusal to accept service could substantially delay the proceedings.”

April 24 – the poll
“A poll being released Tuesday morning by the Council of Canadians shows a pattern of misleading election calls targeting opposition supporters in the seven ridings where the organization is seeking new elections. The poll, conducted April 13-19 by Ekos Research Associates, found that Liberal, NDP and Green party supporters in the seven ridings were more much more likely to report receiving a telephone call late in the election directing them to the wrong polling station than Conservative supporters, or opposition supporters in other ridings. …Only 6.9 per cent of Conservative supporters in the ridings in question reported receiving a call directing them to the wrong polling station late in the campaign, while 29.5 per cent of Liberal supporters say they received such a call, many after having received a voter-identification call. …Graves (also) used a control group of 1,500 respondents in other ridings, where there were no allegations of misleading calls. Only 14.3 per cent of Liberal supporters in those ridings reported receiving misleading calls.”

True democracy is a 24-7 pursuit. Your gift of $24 (or as generous as you can be) will directly help to support crucial legal actions now underway to annul the election results in 7 federal ridings. To donate, please go to http://canadians.org/donate-democracy247