No charges after voter fraud probe into 2017 Alberta leadership race

— Alberta RCMP won’t lay criminal charges following a multi-year probe into alleged voter identity fraud in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race that saw former premier Jason Kenney elected leader.

Although investigators found up to 200 problematic votes in the election that saw about 60,000 ballots cast, Supt. Rick Jane said Friday there wasn’t enough to lay charges of identity theft against any person.

“The Alberta RCMP determined that there were suspected instances of potential fraud, however there was insufficient evidence to charge any suspect,” RCMP Supt. Rick Jane said at a news conference Friday.

He also said there was no evidence any leadership candidate orchestrated any fraud.

“We didn’t find evidence of a co-ordinated effort involving the entire leadership campaign. I’m not going to comment on whether any of the individuals taking advantage may have known each other.”

United Conservative Party spokesman Dave Prisco welcomed the findings.

“We welcome the closure of this matter, which has concluded without the need for any further action and found that the vote’s outcome was unaffected,” he said in an email.

The investigation was launched after Kenney won the race to become leader of the party created from the merger of Alberta’s two conservative rival parties — the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose.

Kenney was leader of the Progressive Conservatives and defeated Wildrose leader Brian Jean and a third candidate, Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer.

Kenney went on to become premier when the UCP won the 2019 provincial election.

That same year, Mounties began investigating allegations of voter identity fraud.

Party members had voted by phone or electronically after receiving PIN numbers from submitted email addresses.

There were allegations that bogus emails were created for some party members in order to hijack their PINs and vote without their knowledge or consent.

Jane said there was some suspicious behaviour. Investigators spoke with dozens of people who appear on the voting record but say they didn’t cast a ballot.

But he said investigators were unable to trace who actually cast those ballots.

As well, there were multiple votes cast from the same phone number or from the same internet provider address. But the data doesn’t show which candidate received which vote and police said it’s not necessarily fraud for multiple votes to come from the same address, since people from the same household could have voted.

The 200 suspicious votes would not have been enough to have tipped the balance in the race. Kenney won with 36,625 votes, which comprised 61 per cent of ballots cast.