Ottawa

The same kind of call

The aforementioned Peggy Walsh-Craig of North Bay describes her experience.

A long-time environmentalist and political advocate, she thought it was “a bit odd” when she received an automated phone call a few weeks prior to the spring 2011 federal election asking if she was planning to vote for the Conservative Party. “I was asked to press a number based on my answer,” Walsh-Craig said. “Generally you get survey calls during election campaigns, but they ask you a couple of questions and they are not generally as direct as this was requesting just a yes, no, how are you going to vote answer.”

The week before the election her phone rang again. “This call was the one we’ve heard repeated over and over on the news,” she said, “telling me that due to higher than expected voter turnout my polling place had been changed.”

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