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Leal even sent out a news release complaining about what he thought was a prank. The paper described Leal as “hopping mad” over the calls.

The day after the election, Del Mastro contacted the newspaper and admitted his campaign had sent out two robocalls on voting day and that the “Jeff” in the message was, in fact, his own campaign manager, Jeff Westlake.

Del Mastro told the paper the messages reminded people it was election day and gave his campaign’s phone number with an offer of rides to the polling stations.

The robocalls were sent out on Del Mastro’s behalf by Campaign Research, a firm used by 39 different Conservative campaigns in the election. The firm later made headlines for making contentious calls into the Montreal riding of Irwin Cotler, suggesting the veteran Liberal MP was planning to retire.

The election day robocall in Peterborough may not have had the caller’s full name, as would be ideal, but it did identify the campaign and it did include a real phone number people could call for more information, said Nick Kouvalis, Campaign Research’s principal partner, in an interview on Monday.

“He did identify the campaign office phone number on the call display,” he said. “And Jeff, his campaign manager, introduced himself at the front of the script. I think they could have done a better job on identification, but it’s pretty clear.”

In comparison, he said, it was impossible to know the source of an abortion-warning call from federal Liberal Frank Valeriote’s campaign in Guelph just by listening to the recording.