Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown weighed-in this past week after the Hamilton Police Service announced it had concluded an investigation into voter fraud allegation while he was Progressive Conservative party leader in 2017.

Police announced Feb. 5 investigators had concluded their probe into alleged ballot tampering in the Ontario PC party candidate nomination process in the riding of Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, finding evidence of fraud but not enough to lay criminal charges.

“We conducted an extensive investigation over 18 months, including numerous pieces of evidence and witness testimony. At the end of that investigation, we determined that a fraud has taken place, but we are unable to tie that fraudulent activity to any certain individual,” said Inspector David Hennick.

Brown, who was PC Party leader between May 2015 and January 2018, issued a statement to The Brampton Guardian on Feb. 26.

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“I am glad the Hamilton Police investigation has cleared party officials of any wrong doing, but there is still lessons to be learned. The realty is the people running nominations are all volunteers and are not equipped to handle nominations of this size,” Brown said. “It’s why after the (Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas) nomination that I brought in PWC to provide third party oversight,” he added.

Police began looking into the matter in May 2017 after one of the potential candidates, Vikram Singh, alleged he lost to nominee Ben Levitt due to fraudulent ballots.

“At issue were a number of ballots, all marked in what appeared to be a similar manner, all of which are believed to have originated from the credentials referral desk. These ballots were all votes for Ben Levitt,” said police, adding Singh would have won the vote in the absence of the tampering.

Investigators found a number of individuals appearing in credential referral forms who indicated to police they did not attend the nomination meeting or cast a ballot. One ballot was even cast by a person who died the week before.

The investigation became something of campaign issue leading up to the Oct. 22 municipal election last year, with opponents suggesting Brown himself was under investigation — which he adamantly denied.

Hennick confirmed Brown was not interviewed as part of the investigation. However, his former party still blames him for the debacle.