For Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the 2011 election story is not aboutrobo-calls. The former Liberal MP for Etobicoke Centre suspects hewas robbed, but not by Pierre Poutine and his disposable cellphone. Rather, he thinks he may have been doomed by a lax application ofthe rules governing who may vote and where. Citing 181 dubiousvotes, Wrzesnewskyj is suing for another chance to win the ridinghe lost, by just 26 votes, to Conservative Ted Opitz.
That there were mistakes is not in doubt. But, for ElectionsCanada, "clerical errors" should not mean that voters aredisenfranchised or an election overturned. For the court, thequestion is whether such errors affected the result. To date, the Etobicoke case has revealed a tangled tale of sloppypaperwork, some of which is ascribed to a natural instinct on thepart of Elections Canada officials to facilitate voting, ratherthan to obstruct it with red tape.
Former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was defeated by ConservativeTed Optiz by 26 votes in Etobicoke Centre. He has gone to court inan attempt to overturn the result. (CBC) But, still: a whole range of problems has turned up which seem topush the boundaries of what's normal. Did some voters vote twice? It seems possible. Did some vote in thewrong riding? Again, it's possible. Led High Bay Lamps
Were there some who do live inthe riding but voted in the wrong polling station? That's possible,too. Did they also vote in the right one? Not impossible. And what about voters whose proof of eligibility can't be found? Ifthey forgot to bring their ID, did someone else vouch for them and, if so, who? Where are the records? If there are no records,how do we know that nobody vouched for more than one person which they're not allowed to do? And, even if they just vouchedonce, how do we know they're eligible? To date, nobody's proved or even alleged anything butinnocent mistakes. But, at some point, Wrzesnewskyj believes,mistakes may be too numerous for the election to be credible. China Outdoor Led Floodlight Bulbs
AndPart 20 of the Canada Elections Act allows challenges in cases of"irregularities, fraud, corrupt or illegal practices that affectedthe results." "This isn't a Liberal or a Conservative issue. This is an issuethat touches everyone," argued Wrzesnewskyj's lawyer, Gavin Tighe."If people have no confidence in the process, it's pretty doubtfulthey re going to participate." David Di Paolo, a lawyer for the chief electoral officer, MarcMayrand, responded that "administrative and clerical errors inelections will be common and, indeed, inevitable and it isessential that only those consequential to the result be used tooverturn an election." Are 'special ballots' really special? Then there's the thorny subject of "special ballots." Such ballotsare available to people who can't get to the polls, either onelection day or at the advance polls. They can apply for one ifthey prove they're on the voters' list or, if they're not on thelist, they can prove they're eligible. In each case, they have tofill out a form correctly. Led Tunnel Light Manufacturer
But what if they don't and get to vote anyway? In the nearby riding of Eglinton Lawrence, these issues contributeto a continuing unease about the 2011 election. This time, theLiberal who lost, Joe Volpe, has not taken the case to court andit wasn't really close, in any case. Conservative Joe Oliver wonhandily, by more than 4,000 votes. Even so, Eglinton Lawrence presents its own set of questions.
At least 2,700 applications by unregistered voters to get on thevoters list were approved by an elections official inEglinton-Lawrence in the last election. Many failed to provide theaddress information Elections Canada requires. (CBC) For one thing, Eglinton Lawrence was plagued with bogus phonecalls. During the campaign, the Volpe team complained to ElectionsCanada about repeated calls, purporting to be from the Liberals,pestering Jewish voters on the Sabbath.
This, Volpe said at thetime, was "a classic vote suppression technique," designed toantagonise Liberal supporters. Elections Canada responded that ithad no jurisdiction to investigate where there was no evidence of"false pretence." The Liberals insist there was. In addition, on election day, Elections Canada workers reporteddozens of complaints from voters who had been told, wrongly, thattheir polling place had been changed. That sounds very much likethe "misdirection" calls that were reported from all over thecountry targeting voters who had revealed they did not plan tovote Conservative. After the election, though, the question of special ballots took ona life of its own in Eglinton Lawrence.
It emerged that anunusually high number of special ballots as many as 2,700 hadbeen applied for and granted. That could reflect a strongget-out-the-vote effort by all parties in a heated contest butthe effort by supporters of Joe Oliver stood out. 'Harper stands for us' In particular, the Liberals point to an "open letter to thecommunity" by a Jewish group called "Gesher," meaning bridge. Theletter urged readers to vote for Oliver and to make sure theirfamilies and friends did the same. "Harper stands for us, we must stand for him," the flyer says."Every vote counts." The Gesher letter notes that many families would be visiting forPassover at the time of the election and adds, "Canadian citizenswho live in other countries can vote in this election.
Pleaseensure that family members visiting for Yom Tov (Passover) go tovote." The flyer was correct up to a point: non-resident citizens can voteif they have been away from Canada for less than five years andintend to return. And many residents, too, could vote by specialballot if they planned to be away when the voting began. In the end, many hundreds of Jewish voters and hundreds ofothers did obtain special ballots in Eglinton Lawrence. We don'tknow how they voted. But we do know that the paperwork was notexactly meticulous.
CBC News has examined more than a thousand of the forms filled into register and to obtain special ballots in Eglinton Lawrenceduring the 2011 election. Of those, only a few seem to be filledout completely and correctly, according to the rules laid out byElections Canada in its "Special Ballot Coordinator's Manual." These specify, for example that a residential address, not merely amailing address, is essential. The application form must be "fullyand accurately completed," the manual says, and ID must be checkedin every case. Even so, hundreds of the special ballot forms are incomplete. Someshow no residential address, or no address at all.
Many also saythe voter is not on the voters list. In at least 150 cases, thereis no residential address on forms which also fail to show whetherthe voters are on the list or say they're not. Others give nodate of birth which is not optional, under the rules or givean address which turns out to be problematic. One gives the addressof a UPS store on Eglinton Avenue.
Nobody lives there. In a couple of cases, there is no address of any kind mailing,residential or previous. On each of those, the applicant also saysthey're not on the voters list. But all of them were approved, asshown by the "signature of authorized officer" on the bottom line.
What to make of these? Basically, we just have to hope that theballot officer checked every voter's ID and didn't bother aboutwhether the form was properly completed. Perhaps there was aline-up and the officer wanted to move things along. But how didthey check the ID to see if it matched an address which ... was notprovided? What's clear is that Elections Canada staff were definitely notobstructing the vote with red tape.
How can Elections Canada investigate if nobody hands over theevidence? None of this proves that the Liberals were robbed, either inEglinton Lawrence or Etobicoke Centre. Even if they were, theproblem is bureaucratic sloppiness, not chicanery by their rivals.However, not surprisingly, Elections Canada officials seem muchkeener to investigate issues like robocalls where no-one'sblaming Elections Canada than their own mistakes. Appearing before a parliamentary committee, Chief Electoral OfficerMarc Mayrand, objected to "sweeping and vague allegations ofirregularities being made public many months after the election andnot supported by specific facts." Mayrand added that, "In some cases, the complaints are made to themedia without any information being forwarded to Elections Canada.Such allegations cannot be verified." He was referring in part, hesaid, to the case of Eglinton Lawrence, noting that "no specificactionable information has been provided to us, making any kind ofreview challenging, to say the least." What is striking about these comments is that, in truth, gettingthe evidence was not challenging at all. That's because the specialballot forms were all provided to Elections Canada, by its ownofficials, immediately after the election.
The same is true inevery riding. By definition, all those forms belong to ElectionsCanada, and have been in its possession ever since. Equally striking is that, in the next breath, Mayrand testifiedthat he had, in fact, reviewed the very forms which, supposedly,had not been provided by the irresponsible authors of theunverifiable allegations. "To be diligent," he went on, "we examined all 1,275 of theseforms, and, with the exception of three voters who were listed at acommercial address, could not find any evidence of irregularitiesas claimed." Presumably, this means that missing addresses or dates of birth, onapplications by people who say they are not on the voters list,don't qualify as "irregularities." In which case, errors are notonly "common" and "inevitable," but uncounted.
Of course, Mayrand also noted that the robocall scandal is far moreserious. "Outrageous," he called it and who could argue? Bycomparison, even hundreds of incomplete special ballot forms don'tstack up. Then again, they do stack up a little too high for comfort. In acountry where you don't even have to prove citizenship to be handeda ballot, it couldn't hurt to make sure that voters at leastprovide an address.
That there were mistakes is not in doubt. But, for ElectionsCanada, "clerical errors" should not mean that voters aredisenfranchised or an election overturned. For the court, thequestion is whether such errors affected the result. To date, the Etobicoke case has revealed a tangled tale of sloppypaperwork, some of which is ascribed to a natural instinct on thepart of Elections Canada officials to facilitate voting, ratherthan to obstruct it with red tape.
Former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was defeated by ConservativeTed Optiz by 26 votes in Etobicoke Centre. He has gone to court inan attempt to overturn the result. (CBC) But, still: a whole range of problems has turned up which seem topush the boundaries of what's normal. Did some voters vote twice? It seems possible. Did some vote in thewrong riding? Again, it's possible. Led High Bay Lamps
Were there some who do live inthe riding but voted in the wrong polling station? That's possible,too. Did they also vote in the right one? Not impossible. And what about voters whose proof of eligibility can't be found? Ifthey forgot to bring their ID, did someone else vouch for them and, if so, who? Where are the records? If there are no records,how do we know that nobody vouched for more than one person which they're not allowed to do? And, even if they just vouchedonce, how do we know they're eligible? To date, nobody's proved or even alleged anything butinnocent mistakes. But, at some point, Wrzesnewskyj believes,mistakes may be too numerous for the election to be credible. China Outdoor Led Floodlight Bulbs
AndPart 20 of the Canada Elections Act allows challenges in cases of"irregularities, fraud, corrupt or illegal practices that affectedthe results." "This isn't a Liberal or a Conservative issue. This is an issuethat touches everyone," argued Wrzesnewskyj's lawyer, Gavin Tighe."If people have no confidence in the process, it's pretty doubtfulthey re going to participate." David Di Paolo, a lawyer for the chief electoral officer, MarcMayrand, responded that "administrative and clerical errors inelections will be common and, indeed, inevitable and it isessential that only those consequential to the result be used tooverturn an election." Are 'special ballots' really special? Then there's the thorny subject of "special ballots." Such ballotsare available to people who can't get to the polls, either onelection day or at the advance polls. They can apply for one ifthey prove they're on the voters' list or, if they're not on thelist, they can prove they're eligible. In each case, they have tofill out a form correctly. Led Tunnel Light Manufacturer
But what if they don't and get to vote anyway? In the nearby riding of Eglinton Lawrence, these issues contributeto a continuing unease about the 2011 election. This time, theLiberal who lost, Joe Volpe, has not taken the case to court andit wasn't really close, in any case. Conservative Joe Oliver wonhandily, by more than 4,000 votes. Even so, Eglinton Lawrence presents its own set of questions.
At least 2,700 applications by unregistered voters to get on thevoters list were approved by an elections official inEglinton-Lawrence in the last election. Many failed to provide theaddress information Elections Canada requires. (CBC) For one thing, Eglinton Lawrence was plagued with bogus phonecalls. During the campaign, the Volpe team complained to ElectionsCanada about repeated calls, purporting to be from the Liberals,pestering Jewish voters on the Sabbath.
This, Volpe said at thetime, was "a classic vote suppression technique," designed toantagonise Liberal supporters. Elections Canada responded that ithad no jurisdiction to investigate where there was no evidence of"false pretence." The Liberals insist there was. In addition, on election day, Elections Canada workers reporteddozens of complaints from voters who had been told, wrongly, thattheir polling place had been changed. That sounds very much likethe "misdirection" calls that were reported from all over thecountry targeting voters who had revealed they did not plan tovote Conservative. After the election, though, the question of special ballots took ona life of its own in Eglinton Lawrence.
It emerged that anunusually high number of special ballots as many as 2,700 hadbeen applied for and granted. That could reflect a strongget-out-the-vote effort by all parties in a heated contest butthe effort by supporters of Joe Oliver stood out. 'Harper stands for us' In particular, the Liberals point to an "open letter to thecommunity" by a Jewish group called "Gesher," meaning bridge. Theletter urged readers to vote for Oliver and to make sure theirfamilies and friends did the same. "Harper stands for us, we must stand for him," the flyer says."Every vote counts." The Gesher letter notes that many families would be visiting forPassover at the time of the election and adds, "Canadian citizenswho live in other countries can vote in this election.
Pleaseensure that family members visiting for Yom Tov (Passover) go tovote." The flyer was correct up to a point: non-resident citizens can voteif they have been away from Canada for less than five years andintend to return. And many residents, too, could vote by specialballot if they planned to be away when the voting began. In the end, many hundreds of Jewish voters and hundreds ofothers did obtain special ballots in Eglinton Lawrence. We don'tknow how they voted. But we do know that the paperwork was notexactly meticulous.
CBC News has examined more than a thousand of the forms filled into register and to obtain special ballots in Eglinton Lawrenceduring the 2011 election. Of those, only a few seem to be filledout completely and correctly, according to the rules laid out byElections Canada in its "Special Ballot Coordinator's Manual." These specify, for example that a residential address, not merely amailing address, is essential. The application form must be "fullyand accurately completed," the manual says, and ID must be checkedin every case. Even so, hundreds of the special ballot forms are incomplete. Someshow no residential address, or no address at all.
Many also saythe voter is not on the voters list. In at least 150 cases, thereis no residential address on forms which also fail to show whetherthe voters are on the list or say they're not. Others give nodate of birth which is not optional, under the rules or givean address which turns out to be problematic. One gives the addressof a UPS store on Eglinton Avenue.
Nobody lives there. In a couple of cases, there is no address of any kind mailing,residential or previous. On each of those, the applicant also saysthey're not on the voters list. But all of them were approved, asshown by the "signature of authorized officer" on the bottom line.
What to make of these? Basically, we just have to hope that theballot officer checked every voter's ID and didn't bother aboutwhether the form was properly completed. Perhaps there was aline-up and the officer wanted to move things along. But how didthey check the ID to see if it matched an address which ... was notprovided? What's clear is that Elections Canada staff were definitely notobstructing the vote with red tape.
How can Elections Canada investigate if nobody hands over theevidence? None of this proves that the Liberals were robbed, either inEglinton Lawrence or Etobicoke Centre. Even if they were, theproblem is bureaucratic sloppiness, not chicanery by their rivals.However, not surprisingly, Elections Canada officials seem muchkeener to investigate issues like robocalls where no-one'sblaming Elections Canada than their own mistakes. Appearing before a parliamentary committee, Chief Electoral OfficerMarc Mayrand, objected to "sweeping and vague allegations ofirregularities being made public many months after the election andnot supported by specific facts." Mayrand added that, "In some cases, the complaints are made to themedia without any information being forwarded to Elections Canada.Such allegations cannot be verified." He was referring in part, hesaid, to the case of Eglinton Lawrence, noting that "no specificactionable information has been provided to us, making any kind ofreview challenging, to say the least." What is striking about these comments is that, in truth, gettingthe evidence was not challenging at all. That's because the specialballot forms were all provided to Elections Canada, by its ownofficials, immediately after the election.
The same is true inevery riding. By definition, all those forms belong to ElectionsCanada, and have been in its possession ever since. Equally striking is that, in the next breath, Mayrand testifiedthat he had, in fact, reviewed the very forms which, supposedly,had not been provided by the irresponsible authors of theunverifiable allegations. "To be diligent," he went on, "we examined all 1,275 of theseforms, and, with the exception of three voters who were listed at acommercial address, could not find any evidence of irregularitiesas claimed." Presumably, this means that missing addresses or dates of birth, onapplications by people who say they are not on the voters list,don't qualify as "irregularities." In which case, errors are notonly "common" and "inevitable," but uncounted.
Of course, Mayrand also noted that the robocall scandal is far moreserious. "Outrageous," he called it and who could argue? Bycomparison, even hundreds of incomplete special ballot forms don'tstack up. Then again, they do stack up a little too high for comfort. In acountry where you don't even have to prove citizenship to be handeda ballot, it couldn't hurt to make sure that voters at leastprovide an address.
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