Vote-rigging crime and punishment
Camps worry fraud won’t be dealt with
OTTAWA • Several Conservative party leadership campaigns are worrying perpetrators of alleged fraud and vote-rigging won’t face consequences.
How rule-breaking will be punished is the talk of the party after 1,351 memberships, worth more than $17,000, were ruled invalid following an investigation last week.
The two perceived leadership front-runners, Maxime Bernier and Kevin O’Leary, have exchanged verbal blows, with O’Leary publicizing fraud allegations last Thursday that sources confirm centre on the Bernier camp, and Bernier’s people leaking an affidavit on the weekend that implicates O’Leary in similar fraud.
Other candidates, including Andrew Scheer, Chris Alexander and Erin O’Toole, more quietly took vote-rigging concerns to the party. The first gossip of wrongdoing by the Bernier campaign reached party ears as early as a month ago, an in- sider said.
Allegations about both camps centre on rule-breaking in ethnic communities in the Greater Toronto Area. Bernier organizers allegedly signed up party members without their knowledge, using prepaid credit cards. An O’Leary organizer allegedly offered to pay for people’s memberships. The communities are known to have bolstered Patrick Brown’s leadership bid for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives.
After O’Leary brought rumours to public attention last Thursday, party officials concluded an investigation and revoked 1,351 memberships that had been purchased online, with prepaid cards, using two specific IP addresses. The party has not connected the memberships to a specific campaign.
Kellie Leitch and others who say they’re innocent of registration fraud are concerned that whoever may have benefited from fake memberships will go unpunished.
In a letter obtained by the National Post, authored by agent Bob Dechert and sent to the party Monday, the Leitch campaign called the fraud “a material breach in the integrity of the leadership selection process.”
The letter was co-signed by the Steven Blaney campaign. Other campaigns were asked for signature but declined.
The letter asks the party to disqualify any candidate found to have directly or indirectly participated in, or acquiesced to, fraudulent bulk purchase of member- ships — saying such actions “irredeemably” taint candidates’ campaigns.
Lisa Raitt’s campaign put out a statement first thing Monday saying she, too, asked the party for an “expedited investigation” and “the expulsion of any candidate found to have broken the leadership rules,” or a “significant fine” for any campaign that authorized the activity.
Kory Teneycke, a former director of communications to prime minister Stephen Harper and an adviser to the Bernier campaign, said calls for disqualification are just “a particular leadership candidate trying to seek headlines.”
“We have a variety of measures we use to review memberships. We’re confident in the ability of the protective measures we regularly use,” party spokesman Cory Hann said.
If candidates break rules, the party can force compliance, levy fines, issue warnings, refer matters to police or disqualify candidates.
Hann didn’t answer a question about whether the party will pursue a court order for information attached to the two IP addresses from which fraudulent memberships were purchased.
“We need to know who are the people who tried to get those memberships,” PierreLuc Jean, with Blaney’s campaign, said. “Where’s the money coming from? … Who are these people?”
Campaigns can sign up new members by collecting personal cheques and credit card numbers.
Starting March 1, registrations submitted by campaigns to the party on paper incurred a $5 fine for each $15 membership, so it is understood that most campaigns submitted the bulk of their memberships Feb. 28. Any last-minute sign-ups from this month need only be submitted by March 28, the last day to become a member and be able to vote on a leader.
With campaigns scrambling to boost their numbers, the public disclosure of fraudulent tactics could dissuade further cheating — ultimately a positive thing, one party insider said.
But it also means if illegal tactics have been used over the past few weeks, the party’s disclosure of its investigation means campaigns have a chance to cover their tracks.
“It’s interesting that they didn’t wait until the membership cutoff, because had they waited, there might have been more of these,” said Melanie Paradis, director of communications for the Erin O’Toole campaign. “Now, (candidates) can purge their unsubmitted lists.”
A full membership list will be given to each campaign April 28, offering candidates the opportunity to communicate with people signed up by their rivals. Mail-in ballots go out early May. A new leader will be chosen May 27.
A MATERIAL BREACH IN THE INTEGRITY OF THE LEADERSHIP SELECTION PROCESS.