A low-level operative in Ontario, Michael Sona, was convicted after being charged with election fraud during the last federal election. The judge said he likely didn’t operate alone and that the fraud, using the massive Cons voter database to send out thousand of robocalls, benefited only the Cons. Those automated calls, by the way, deliberately misdirected non-Conservative voters by impersonating Elections Canada (which is a crime) and telling people their polling station had been moved to another location. As a result, some people turned up at the wrong address and were so frustrated they didn’t vote at all.

Harper won the last election by a mere 6,200 votes spread over 13 ridings. In my own riding (Yukon) he won by 132 votes. It’s not hard to figure out that, with such narrow margins, fraudulent tactics could give you the edge. Thousands of voters subsequently complained to Elections Canada about the calls. I personally know of a colleague who got such a call and initially thought it was a “mistake.” Naturally. After all, in Canada we don’t do Republican tactics like election fraud, right?