OTTAWA—There was a widespread but “thinly scattered” vote suppression effort across Canada during the 2011 federal election that ultimately did not affect the outcome nor warrant annulling results, a federal court judge has ruled.

Justice Richard Mosely, in a 100-page ruling released Thursday, found that “misleading calls about the locations of polling stations were made to electors in ridings across the country” including six ridings at the heart of a lawsuit brought by the Council of Canadians against the Conservative Party of Canada.

He said the purpose of the calls “was to suppress the votes of electors who had indicated their voting preference in response to earlier voter identification calls.”

But Mosely said he was unable to conclude the vote suppression efforts had a major impact on the credibility of the vote.

There was no evidence led, he said, to show that voters stayed home in any numbers that would have affected the “magic number” that became the margin of victory in the ridings that were closely examined.

Mosely also said he did not have evidence to conclude that the Conservative party or any candidate, its voter identification and political marketing agents RMG and RackNine Inc. were directly involved in the campaign to mislead voters, saying it would impose “an impossibly high standard of proof.”

But the judge did point a finger squarely at the Conservative party’s database of voters as a source of information for whoever did orchestrate the voter suppression calls. “I am satisfied, however, that the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this Court.”

Mosely said there was no evidence to show the party approved or condoned that use of its data. Indeed, there were “elaborate efforts to conceal” the identity of those accessing the database and arranging for the calls to be made.”

Because the “magic number” of potential voters affected was not enough to change the outcome, Mosely did not annul the result in any of six ridings in question, but said he would have had he found any evidence of direct involvement by the party or its candidates.

Mosely said the scale of the fraud he did find “has to be kept in perspective.”

He cited the report by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada on the 41st general election, which said a total of 66,146 polls at which 14,823,408 electors cast their ballots were set up and operated across Canada on polling day.

“The number and location of the complaints received by Elections Canada from across Canada indicates that the voter suppression effort was geographically widespread but, apart from Guelph, thinly scattered.”

Both sides late Thursday claimed victory in the decision.

The Council of Canadians said in a statement said the decision “vindicates” its concerns because the judge did conclude that “fraud occurred,” which raises “the gravest concerns” about the election process.

“This is a victory for the individual applicants, for the thousands of donors who stepped up to pay their legal bills, and for Canadian democracy,” said Garry Neil, executive director of the Council of Canadians. “A senior Federal Court judge found that the election was marred by widespread fraudulent activities, not just in Guelph but across the country.”

The council is now studying whether to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, saying if they thought they had a chance, they would proceed, and foot the legal bill, but ask Canadians for donations.

“Perhaps the greatest victory of this case is the awareness it created among Canadian voters,” said Neil. “No political party will dare try to trick us out of our votes this way again.”

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The judge did not make a final ruling on costs, and invited further submissions, yet rapped the Conservative party for making “little effort to assist with the investigation” despite the “obvious public interest in getting to the bottom of the allegations.”

The Conservative Party of Canada released a statement saying the decision concluded “there was no wrongdoing by the Conservative party or any of the candidates or campaign teams targeted” by the lawsuit.

Spokesman Fred DeLorey said that the court found “that not a single voter was produced to testify that they were prevented from voting due to alleged voter suppression

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