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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Tories, firm dispel affidavit on robocalls

Worker cites peers' concerns

By: Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher

Posted: 04/19/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

OTTAWA -- The Conservative party and its main call-bank company rejected as false a sworn affidavit from a former phone worker who alleges she and her colleagues were concerned they had misdirected voters in the days leading up to the recent federal election.

In an affidavit released Wednesday, Annette Desgagné said in the last few days before the May 2 election, scripts for callers at the Responsive Marketing Group's phone bank in Thunder Bay, Ont., instructed them to identify themselves as calling from the "Voter Outreach Centre" and to tell voters about last-minute changes Elections Canada had made to polling stations.

One caller, Desgagné claimed, identified himself as calling from Elections Canada.

Desgagné's affidavit was filed as part of a series of court challenges launched by the Council of Canadians. The group alleges fraudulent phone calls in the last election affected the outcomes of votes in seven ridings and wants the Federal Court to set the results aside.

The Conservatives dismissed the litigation as an attempt by the losers to change the outcome of the election.

"This is a transparent attempt to overturn certified election results simply because this activist group doesn't like them," said party spokesman Fred DeLorey in an emailed statement.

RMG issued its own statement, saying it called only Conservative supporters in the days leading up to the vote and the scripts call workers used clearly indicated they were calling on behalf of the party.

"(It) would make no sense for RMG to give identified Conservative supporters incorrect voting information," the company said.

Desgagné, 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, Desgagné says, the scripts she was reading off a computer screen were changed to change-of-address calls.

"I started to become concerned about the change-of-address calls, because several of the listeners with whom I spoke questioned me about the new polling location I was providing," Desgagné said.

One woman from Winnipeg told Desgagné the new poll location she provided was more than an hour from her home, Desgagné said. In another call, she says, she gave a new poll location to a woman who already had voted in the lobby of her seniors residence.

"As these calls grew in number, I became increasingly concerned that I was giving out incorrect information to voters."

RMG claims its callers did not make change-of-location calls, but, rather, made get-out-the-vote (GOTV) calls that included polling-address confirmations.

"The scripts indicated that Elections Canada had changed 'some' polling locations -- not that 'their' (that individual's) location had changed," the company said.

"The caller then asked the voter if they knew their location and, if that location was different from what the caller had onscreen, informed them of the onscreen location."

Desgagne said she also heard other RMG call workers raising concerns about the poll-change calls. "Many callers were still indicating during our breaks that listeners were telling them the change-of-address information we were giving was wrong."

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 19, 2012 A6

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