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On March 2, Elections Canada said that it had already received 31,000 submissions. It later stated that the majority of those “contacts” were the result of an online petition calling for a public inquiry.

But some of the information provided to the agency is “gold,” according to a source close to the investigation, and some complainants have reported followup calls from investigators.

At least one other Elections Canada investigator, Tim Charbonneau, has joined former RCMP inspector Al Mathews, who is leading the probe. They have interviewed witnesses beyond Guelph, which suggests they are taking seriously reports of telephone mischief in other communities.

According to a CBC investigation voters who revealed they would not be voting Conservative received robocalls sending them to fake polling stations.

The report suggests the misleading phone calls relied on data gathered by the Conservative Party.

Tim McCoy of the riding of Ottawa-Vanier complained to Elections Canada after he received a phoney robocall pretending to be from Elections Canada. But he told the CBC he also had two previous calls from the Conservatives and declined to pledge his vote to the party.

After the story broke last month, Elections Canada set up an online complaint-submission form and hired about a dozen “administrative” workers to sift through the electronic submissions, call complainants and send them on to the office of the Commissioner of Elections, where the small group of experienced investigators can follow them up.