Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, March 02, 2012

Robo-calls: Elections Canada logs 31,000 complaints in robo-call scandal

Elections Canada has confirmed that it is investigating tens of thousands of complaints it has received about misleading and harassing robo-calls made during last year’s federal election.

The agency says it has been contacted by more than 31,000 Canadians with information about the calls as a result of political parties and MPs asking the public to come forward if they received any.

A statement released by Elections Canada Friday morning said that the Commissioner of Canada Elections, who is tasked to investigate all complaints made to the agency, “has the authority, during periods of high volume, to contract additional resources or call upon other law enforcement agencies, such as the RCMP, to lend assistance and expertise.”

The agency has not confirmed whether it has, in fact, called on the RCMP for assistance.

It says it will report to Parliament with its finding “in due course.”

Liberal Leader Bob Rae called the number of complaints “unprecedented.”

“We are now in uncharted waters . . . we’ve never seen anything like this,” he said Friday morning.

Rae said the volume of public complaints will make it tougher for the prime minister to stick to their line that the whole affair is a “smear” by opposition MPs.

“He’s going to have a hard time simply dismissing these concerns about what happened in the last election,” Rae said.

As they did the day before, the Conservatives tried Friday to pin the phony calls on the Liberals — a charge the Liberals have rejected.

“Despite what the Conservatives say . . . I don’t think you can get around the fact that this is a literally unprecedented series of event,” Rae said. “Something happened in the last election and I think we’re all trying to figure out exactly what it was.”

Elections Canada has come under fire in recent days for its unwillingness to confirm or deny whether it was investigating complaints about fraudulent phone calls made during the 2011 general election campaign. Voters in ridings across the country have complained that they received calls telling them to go to phony voting locations and rudely urging them to vote for particular candidates.

Questions have been raised about whether or not election outcomes could have been affected by the calls, particularly in ridings where the final vote tallies were razor thin.

Until Friday, the only indication that the agency was looking into the calls was through court filings showing that Elections Canada was investigating RackNine Inc., an Edmonton-based automated call company.

In its statement, Elections Canada stressed that the commissioner does not usually confirm or deny the existence of complaints or referrals and does not discuss details of investigations or reviews. It said disclosure is dictated by three considerations: the need to protect the presumption of innocence and privacy; the need for the commissioner’s office to carry out its compliance and enforcement responsibilities in a manner that is consistent, effective, impartial and in conformity with applicable law; and the need to maintain public confidence in the fairness of an electoral process carried out in accordance with the Canada Elections Act.

Antonio Salvadori, a resident of Guelph, a riding that has reported dozens of misleading phone calls, said he received several automated calls on election day last year telling him that his polling station had been moved to a downtown mall. The voice on the message purported to be from Elections Canada.

“I immediately got suspicious because the message said the voting location had been changed to the Old Quebec Street mall, and I’d never heard of a polling booth in a mall,” Salvadori told the Star. “Usually it’s at a school or a hotel.”

When he phone Elections Canada to inquire, he was told that he was the “fiftieth or sixtieth” elector reporting similar misleading calls that day, and that he should go to the polling location indicated on his voter card.

Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Kenyon Wallace and Bruce Campion-Smith

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