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.]

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Sorry, robots didn't highjack the election

The NSM - ­that stands for the non-Sun Media - ­thinks robots stole the last election for Stephen Harper by calling up Liberals and using their robotic powers to convince them not to vote.

The NSM is caught up in this conspiracy theory. It's become a mania. They've whipped each other up. It's a study in the madness of crowds, of pack thinking.

It's like the NSM's other bizarre obsessions. Like the long-form census that the Tories made voluntary. Or the NSM's obsession with unfounded rumours about our soldiers' treatment of Taliban prisoners; or the fake freak out over a common parliamentary procedure called prorogation; or, more recently, the fake freak out over the right to have gay divorces in Canada for gay marriages performed in other countries.

What all these fake scandalettes have in common is the NSM deciding, all together, that they've found some Watergate moment that will make them heroes and bring down the hated Conservatives. So any facts that contradict their central theory are discarded.

Today's narrative is that robots stole the election. They say Elections Canada admits that they've received "31,000 complaints" about robots so far.

You couldn't pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV without hearing that stat.

Except that's not what Elections Canada actually said. They said "more than 31,000 contacts have been initiated with Elections Canada by Canadians."

Thirty-one thousand contacts. Not 31,000 complaints. What's the difference?

It means recent form letters sent in by Liberals and NDPers complaining about the scandalette.

In fact, robots have become quite a fundraiser for them ­ and for a left-wing front group called Leadnow.ca -- http://leadnow.ca. They've set up a website automating complaints to Elections Canada.

Leadnow.ca is run by NDPers like Ian Capstick and Judy Rebick. Their "non-partisan" website has generated thousands of clicks on the Elections Canada website ­- just like clicking "like" on Facebook. It's enough for the NSM to scream that thousands of robot "complaints" are flooding in.

Even Americans are getting in on the game. Avaaz.org -- http://Avaaz.org -- a New York-based lobby group, has asked their members to contact Elections Canada, too. You'll remember Avaaz as the propagandists who tried to get the Sun News Network banned by the CRTC before we even broadcast a single minute on TV. They're asking their international membership to contact Elections Canada.

Talk about manipulating democracy.

But what did Elections Canada's actual 190-page report from the last election say?

It referenced hundreds of irregularities the 2011 election. Most of which were Elections Canada staff sleeping in or otherwise not showing up at a polling station on time. There were a few reports of shenanigans. But here's what they concluded, on page 3: "There was no conduct reported that would bring into question the integrity of the election result overall or the result in a particular riding."

In fact, their report calls media comments to the contrary "speculation."

So were there irregularities? There always are in a country of 34 million people and thousands of temporary Elections Canada workers. But Elections Canada concluded the results were not affected.

Why did the NSM not mention that Elections Canada concluded there was no change to the results?

Because that troublesome fact didn't fit their agenda.

Here's one more inconvenient fact. Not a single Canadian ­- not one ­- has come forward to say that some robot phone call made them miss out on voting.

Not a single Canadian was fooled.

Robots didn't fool you. Will the NSM?

Original Article
Source: toronto sun
Author: Ezra Levant

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