Voter intimidation

"Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?"--- Hannibal Lecter

This was something that was written on May 3rd, 2011. It was written to detail what was observed in one Elections Canada Returning Office on election day. It has been edited with notes and to remove certain names.

Now I ask, how does the Fair Elections Act (FEA) address these problems? What is the Act's nature? How does it make elections 'fairer'? How does it safeguard Canadian democracy?
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* Calls and misdirection.

We had dozens of calls from people telling us they had been told their voting location was- an hour away, on the other side of the riding, on the other side of the city. The volume of these calls seemed to indicate something was 'up'.

More importantly, we received many calls from specific subsets of angry voters. There were multiple phone calls from angry parents of new born babies saying that they received calls in the middle of the night, waking their baby up in the process. The calls were reportedly from Liberal candidate X. Now I ask, how did they know who had a new born baby?

Other calls were received from religious voters who were called at very specific times that offended their religion and religious practices.

These were not 'random'. Whoever organized it had to know a great deal of information about the private lives of those who were called, as well as contact information, in order to execute the calls.

* Scrutineers

This was the craziest part of my day. And it came in all forms.

- At the polling stations, candidate Y had scrutineers for registration desks and for polls. The ones at the registration desks seemed to have been instructed to harass or intimidate voters. They were walking up to people waiting in line to register and asking/demanding to see their ID. Stop and think about that. These voters hadn’t even gotten to the table to say they wanted to register and they were being intimidated. All in the attempt to make sure voter turn out was low/some people wouldn’t vote. It took me 90 minutes to handle this by phone, sending people out and removing people.

- Candidate Y's team sent a man to sit and monitor the Returning Office. It was done under the guise of ‘scrutineering’, but the man arrived more than 5 hours before any scrutineering was to take place. The aim was undoubtedly to sit there and listen/watch and report or record any comments or events that might give candidate grounds for appeal. When asked to leave, he refused. He then left briefly, was clearly given orders to go back in and so came in and sat down again. I confirmed with the Elections Canada head office that he had no right to be there. There was no voting going on, nor was there any registration or counting. He was asked to leave again and refused. We called the cops. The cops arrived and he still refused to leave. He wouldn’t leave until his replacement arrived. Again, I remind you, there was no voting, no registration and no counting going on. The police had instructed him to leave and he refused. It wasn’t until he was told “We’re leaving and you’re coming with us whether you want to or not,” that he got up and left with the cops. Again, stop and think about that. Does it sound like paranoia? Would you be surprised if Candidate Y's party then passed the Fair Elections Act?

* DROs

Candidates are allowed to recommend people for DRO and poll clerk. As far as we can tell, as they were handing voters their ballots, two of candidate Y's people started to tell voters during the after work rush that if they voted for Harper/the Conservatives, there wouldn’t be any more of ‘these’ elections. The dual interpretation of that phrase speaks volumes. But again, this is clearly what they had been instructed to do. This was the lengths to which they were willing to go.--- The FEA seeks to broaden the powers of appointment that let this happen.

All of this was not part of some accidental series of unrelated events. It was deliberate. It was organized. Each person knew what to do because they were told what to do. The demanding to see IDs was voter intimidation. Party Y's aim of lower turnout was no secret. This was one of the ways they were planning on making it happen. From scrutineers, to appointing DROs, to flyering, every last detail was accounted for and planned. Everyone was given very specific instructions.

In many cases they knew the acts were illegal, but they did them anyway. They were willing to be thrown out by the police to achieve their aims. This is the level of organization and dedication to gaining power these people had; that Party Y has.