**Read recent history, if not caught-up.**

A collective “Oh, shit/merde!” is possibly going quickly out of the mouths of anonymous Conservatives in Ottawa. They’ve basically involved the party in the Robocalls that Poutine sent out from Guelph through RackNine, while trying to minimize image damage! Providing non-public evidence of electoral fraud to “select journalists” and not secretly to Elections Canada for followup, seems an odd strategy.

Sixth Estate figured it out, they say. Terry Milewski, and umpteen bloggers are asking similar questions. That means that by Monday, the Main Stream Media might catch on and realize the Conservatives are in an extremely awkward position now. Ask a few pointed questions of them.

Ivison of the National Post didn’t seem to realize [or maybe didn’t bother to point out] the major implication of his overly-fair article with some leaked details that were supposed to distance the Conservatives from the other fraudulent live-calls and other illegal robocalls made around the country.

“[Poutine’s] call that claimed to come from Elections Canada was sent out to 5,053 recipients[…] “The database makes mistakes. We try to fix the supporters side but no-one pays attention to the non supporters side — the data is not maintained,” said one source.

The Conservative Party has been trying to find out who Pierre Poutine phoned, in order to confirm suspicions that calls from Guelph spilled into other ridings. They have not been able to access those phone records — until now.

Did someone leak this information to the Conservatives before they leaked it to the media?

So straightforward logic leads us to Sixth Estate’s damning point:

Where did the Conservatives get this evidence in the first place? These phone records, if they’re legit, are evidence of election fraud. The proper place for these records is in the hands of Elections Canada investigators. The fact that the Conservatives have them can only mean one of three things: The Conservatives got the records directly from Racknine. I’m not sure how that squares with Racknine’s previous claims that they are a non-partisan organization and that the call order in question didn’t come from the Conservative Party (which would mean, presumably, that they shouldn’t be sharing the records with an unconnected third party). The Conservatives got the records from Elections Canada. This would suggest either that the Conservatives have a mole on the investigation team, or that Elections Canada is under political control by the very party that it’s currently supposed to be investigating. The Conservatives got the records internally. This would suggest they already know who the perpetrator is — and may have known all along. You can choose which of those options seems most palatable.



And now we’ll take a moment to pause, and think about what’s been done and said…

(http://bcblue.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/its-only-dirty-tricks-if-conservatives-are-accused-doing-it/)

Steve B. Says:

February 23, 2012 at 10:03 AM Of course, the media is all over the reports of the “scandal” but naturally, Jenni Byrne’s statement denying any involvement on an official party scale gets back page, small print coverage. The CBC probaby won’t even mention it BC Blue Says:

February 23, 2012 at 10:05 AM Yes, that statement put her career on the line

&

From CPC spokesman Fred DeLorey

o The Conservative Party National Campaign did not organize or know about any such activities in that riding but has been cooperating fully with Elections Canada.

&

“The question of central Conservative Party control over voter identification information has become a new element in the controversy over allegedly fraudulent or misleading robocalls in the federal election last year, following statements from Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and other senior Conservative MPs and officials that the party was not involved.”

… and contemplate the careers that are in jeopardy because of “Conservative partisans” trying to help “tamp down the notion that the problem was bigger than Guelph”.

James:

In attempting to defuse the situation through Ivison’s shillitry, the Cons have actually made it worse form themselves. The reason for limiting the supposed damage to Ontario is that the Cons know exactly who “Poutine” called and when. How did they obtain this information? It is unlikely that Elections Canada (although they must know all this through the Rack9 subpoena) would reveal it to either the Cons or Ivison. Either Rack9 told them (which I think is doubtful because it would put Meier in an extremely awkward legal position) or they already know because the info is in their CIMS database. Sixth Estate:

I agree, James. Racknine has good reasons not to get implicated in this — they’re only a service provider. Elections Canada doesn’t seem likely to share investigation data with their suspects. Which leaves a Conservative inside job.

Humour the thought that Pierre Poutine in Guelph is the extent of the problem for the anonymous Conservatives (falling back from their hard position weeks ago that there was no involvement from the national party. How did Poutine get the phone numbers for the calls made outside of Guelph that are well documented? Poutine must have just used the same method to get phone numbers for elsewhere that they used to get the Guelph numbers from the CIMS database, right?

@TraceyKent (CIMS user) responds to that question: @saskboy no those in ridings cannot access info from other ridings. Security is tight. Only ones w/whole access is big people at CPC

https://twitter.com/#!/TraceyKent/status/176056917356060672

Oh Oh!

drip *drip* **drip**…