OTTAWA—The federal Conservative party has removed 1,351 people from its membership rolls following a review sparked by leadership hopeful Kevin O’Leary’s accusation that one of his rivals has been engaging in widespread fraud and vote-rigging.

Those individuals will no longer be eligible to vote in the party’s leadership contest.

After an expedited review, the party says it found the now-cancelled memberships were purchased through two IP addresses and were not paid for by the individual members, contrary to party rules.

The party couldn’t determine which leadership campaign or campaigns were behind the scheme as the memberships were purchased anonymously through the party’s website.

The finding backs up O’Leary’s assertion late Thursday that unnamed backroom organizers were trying to buy the leadership race by using untraceable, prepaid credit cards to sign up fake members.

Over the last six months, the party says it has received 1,233 prepaid credit card transactions through its website, roughly half of which have been traced to the two IP addresses.

Party spokesman Cory Hann said it wasn’t possible to determine which leadership campaign or campaigns were behind the scheme since the memberships were purchased anonymously through the party’s website.

In a statement late Friday, O’Leary expressed concern that there will be many more fake memberships submitted before a Mar. 28 deadline to buy a membership in time to be eligible to vote for a new leader.

“There are clearly forces at work who are trying to influence the outcome,” the statement said.

The development follows a spat between the two perceived front-runners in the Conservative leadership race over allegations of voter fraud.

In an email to supporters Friday, Maxime Bernier identified his campaign as the target of voter-fraud allegations made by Kevin O’Leary’s camp Thursday night.

“He knows my campaign has raised more money, signed up more members, has more supporters and more volunteers. He’s a bad candidate,” Bernier wrote in an unusually blunt fundraising email.

“Instead of trying to win people over by putting out a platform, he’s throwing mud to try to save his campaign.”

On Thursday night, O’Leary’s team sent an email to reporters accusing an unnamed rival campaign of using prepaid credit cards to buy memberships in Ontario, allegedly without the knowledge of the people they were signing up.

The party’s constitution requires members to purchase their own membership with their own money.

The Conservative party, without naming Bernier’s campaign, confirmed that it was aware of the allegations and was reviewing the matter.

Tony Clement, a former cabinet minister and senior adviser to Bernier, did not categorically deny the allegations when asked by the Star directly.

But Clement did say that the Bernier campaign is not aware of any instances of voter fraud carried out by its volunteers.

“If there’s an instance that is uncovered — we don’t know of any — but if there is an instance that’s uncovered, that in some way violates (the rules), then, of course, the party has to invalidate the membership,” said Clement.

Clement said he spoke with Bernier Thursday night and Bernier was not aware of the matter before O’Leary issued the press release.

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When asked if the Bernier campaign had purchased prepaid credit cards, Clement said he expects that “most campaigns” would have “some individuals who decided to sign up using their prepaid credit cards.

“I have no knowledge of that being illegal or in any way untoward,” Clement said. “But it has to be, as we’ve all been aware, that it has to be the decision of the individual person to sign up using that method. I’m not aware of any issue involving that.”

A phone call and email to O’Leary’s campaign were not returned as of Friday afternoon. In a statement, O’Leary called on the other 12 candidates in the race to “unite” with him to protect the integrity of the leadership contest.

“My campaign has been informed by the party that a pattern of suspicious memberships has been identified,” O’Leary statement read.

“We must ensure the power to select the leader remains with legitimate party members.”

But some of his rivals seemed unsympathetic.

Andrew Saxton and Rick Peterson challenged O’Leary, who has participated in just two leadership debates, to participate in future debates if he’s so concerned about promoting democracy.

Kellie Leitch suggested it’s a bit rich for O’Leary “to cast aspersions on the other candidates in this race without a shred of evidence” when he’s the only candidate who’s been fined by the party — for refusing to attend a bilingual debate in Edmonton.

“You need to put up or shut up Kevin,” she tweeted.

Brad Trost also called on O’Leary to provide proof of his allegations, immediately and publicly.

“If this is nothing but a publicity stunt and Mr. O’Leary has no evidence, then he should be sanctioned to the greatest extent possible by the party,” Trost said.