General

Elections Canada says Conservative campaign worker’s IP address was used for robocalls

Elections Canada investigators believe the same IP address used to send misleading robocalls to voters in Guelph, Ont., was used by the deputy campaign manager of Conservative candidate Marty Burke.

According to the CBC, the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen, documents filed in court by Allan Mathews, the main Elections Canada investigator in charge of the investigation, show that the fraudster behind the “Pierre Poutine” alias used the same IP address as the one used to order legitimate calls from the Guelph Tory candidate’s campaign. An IP number is akin to a telephone number assigned to computers on the Internet.

Mathews, however, does not directly accuse the Tory campaign staffer implicated, Andrew Prescott, of actually placing the calls.

According to previous court filings, the “Pierre Poutine” alias had been used as a fake name to register a cell phone to set up a scheme of dialing voters of other parties to mislead them to the wrong polling stations on election day.

From the CBC:

Prescott had an account with Racknine, a company that does robocalling, or voice broadcasting, and which was used by “Pierre Poutine” to make the false calls.

Prescott’s account was used to make legitimate calls on behalf of the campaign of Conservative candidate Marty Burke.

Mathews found that both Prescott and “Pierre Poutine” used the same two IP addresses when logging into their accounts with Racknine. On May 2, 2011 — election day — both clients “accessed Racknine within four minutes of each other,” using the same IP address, Mathews says in the court document.


 

Looking for more?

Get the Best of Maclean's sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for news, commentary and analysis.
  • By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
FILED UNDER: