Recall day poll newsflash:fake robo-calls to Barrett supporters in election. Putting on a strategy hat, I think the main effect of this electing day strategy would be to:
- Elicit coverage in Barrett sympathetic media
- Result in pro-Barrett people tweeting
- Motivate Barrett voters not to skip voting.
Conversely, I think this would be a suicidal strategy for Walker.
Barrett himself reports getting a call. Has anyone seen whether he or anyone else managed to do the obvious and pull the phone number off caller ID? Has he reported the number being blocked? I have found no mention of about the phone numbers associated with the calls in the two or three news reports I read.
I wasn’t expecting to post twice about the poll. I already bought cheese to eat tonight, but I’d been holding off on beverage purchases!
If they are phoning all the people on the recall list that M Mouse, A Hitler and many others are going to get upset.
“Mickey Mouse, Adolf Hitler Allowed On Wis. Recall Petitions
GAB Rules Address, Date More Important Than Names
December 14, 2011
MADISON, Wis. — The signatures of Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler will be counted on recall petitions targeting Gov. Scott Walker as long as they are properly dated and include a Wisconsin address, the board charged with reviewing the petitions was told Tuesday.”
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/wi-accepts-fake-names-on-recall-petitions
I wonder if the robo callers mentioned anything about culling climate scientists.
Are the new numbers realistic? I and many colleagues I spoke to have serious doubts. It is a model result which is in stark contradiction to data-based estimates. The simulation is based on a simple assumption: first the total water demand was estimated, second the availability of near-surface water, and then the shortfall was assumed to be completely supplied by unlimited use of fossil water.
Rahmstorf in RealClimate.
I’d be very interested in SteveF’s thoughts on this new sea level paper.
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My bet is these unverified claims of robo-calls etc. were designed to justify demands for a recall or federal intervention if the electoin had been close enough to give the democrats hope of ‘adjusting’ the outcome in their favor.
The interesting question for me to ponder is this: Will public sector unions double down or get more realistic?
The probability of the Caller ID number being legit is pretty remote. If you are going to be making robo-calls you are probably going to be doing it through a PRI (primary rate interface). One of the nice things about a PRI is you can send anything you want as your caller ID. That is why you will often see 800 numbers listed from telemarketers (toll free numbers are incoming only, you can’t make outgoing calls on a toll free number).
After what happened in Maryland with the robocalls it would take an idiot to try that again.
Greg F
I didn’t know this. That’s interesting.
We had robo-calls in our last federal election in Canada. The intent appeared to be to swing enough votes to win ridings (voting regions in Canada) that were perceived as very close losses for the party making the calls.
Read some background in one of our (Canadian) conservative national newspapers.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/robo-call-complaints-received-from-about-200-ridings-elections-canada/article4224379/
Or the tiny URL version…
http://tinyurl.com/87zgmcr
This can be a real threat to the voting process – be alert!
John Robertson
The Globe and Mail a “conservative” newspaper? Tells me your political scale is skewed far Left.
Meanwhile, robocalls and all, the Wisconsin election boiled down to the following: the average Wisconsin state worker has a total compensation package of approx $ 82K. A similarly skilled private sector worker in the same state has a total compensation package of approx $ 67K.
Political reality is that voters have clued in to this and that there are a good number of people on both sides of the US/Canada border who have a growing problem with the fact that those who actually produce the wealth earn less than those in the public sector who are are paid from taxes on that wealth.
tetris/John–
As of yesterday morning, no one even knows who made the calls. The reading I’d done indicated that no one receiving the calls had provided anyone a recording. No recordings being made seems a near miraculous feat with robo-calls which usually do leave recordings. But maybe these didn’t. Or those who were upset and reported didn’t think to preserve the recordings and so on.
Given the evidence, and a likely change of events, I would think this particular dirty tricks strategy would make more sense if a Democratic supporter counting on the story generating tweets and then better voter turn out did it rather than a Republican doing it. But the fact that it makes more sense to think a Democrat benefited doesn’t mean the Democrats did do it.
I’m going to wait to reserve judgement until I read more. I’m not going to devote morning noon and night for the investigation though. If you have read any concrete not-easily spoofable evidence about who did this, let me know.
I couldn’t find any stories on it that weren’t as old as the election day. You’d think this would be a juicy enough scandal for the Democrats to pursue. If they have evidence that a Republican group was responsible, they will use it. If it dies a quiet death, I would assume it was concocted by a Walker opponent.
Over here in the UK our equivalent of robo-calls (if I understand the term correctly) is cheap cold calls from poor sales types in India.
Even the rubbish is outsourced nowadays.
PS: The Indians normally pretend that their name is Tim 🙂
lucia, there is no recording of the Tea Party shouting “Ni$$er” at the black Democratic congressmen, even though a cash prize of $100,000 was offered.
“John Robertson (Comment #97402)
June 7th, 2012 at 8:45 pm
We had robo-calls in our last federal election in Canada. The intent appeared to be to swing enough votes to win ridings (voting regions in Canada) that were perceived as very close losses for the party making the calls.”
Quite a horrible thing those calls were – Ironic that the conservative MP charged with defending the Government against robocalls is also under investigation for failing to report campaign expenses (reportedly 20,000 to a robocall firm). The electoral system in Canada is a sham and after what happened in the last election it has left many disillusioned with the system. Only in Canada does being opposed by 60% of the population in an election give you a mandate to make radical fundamental changes…
DocMartyn:
As I recall, it’s even worse than that as there were multiple video cameras rolling at the time it supposedly happened. If so, it’s hard to imagine any excuse for there not being a recording.
Robocalls not getting recorded makes sense for the people who picked up the phone (since few tape records their calls), and more and more, answering machines aren’t located in the house, but rather at some phone company. That means you can’t just pop out a tape and hand it to someone. It’s still hard to believe nobody kept a recording, but it’s not like when we can watch footage of the crowd while they’re supposedly yelling something and not hear it.
Robert
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“Only in Canada does being opposed by 60% of the population in an election give you a mandate to make radical fundamental changes…”
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Spare us the NDP talking points.
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Canada is a decent fiscal shape today specifically because the system elects governments that can get things done. The democratic check we have is at each election where parties that abuse the public trust too much are voted out and (in some cases) the entire party is wiped out. This is much preferable to the US system where hard decisions seem to be impossible to make.
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IOW – The conservatives got more votes than any other party and that is enough to give them a mandate to govern as they see fit. There is another election in 2015 if you don’t like it.
Even if the recording is at the phone company it exists. So you would think all that is required is for someone to not erase.
I have an answering machine at home. If I got such a recording, I’m just not hit erase. Also, given that many people screen calls, and most would likely not pick up a robo-call on election day, you’d think there would be recordings.
It’s very odd.
lucia:
Definitely. It’d likely take more effort to verify recordings held at the phone company, and people might be less inclined to share them, but there would definitely be recordings out there if those calls were made.
Lucia
In the Canadian case, Elections Canada, the official federal supervisory body, formally requested and was provided with all available electronic records -from the political parties to the various service providers- and was ultimately unable to piece together the source of the robo calls.
TimG
In Canada, a majority government has every political and legal right to make [fundamental] changes as it sees fit. Just ask Chretien or Mulroney..
That you, John Robertson and Robert don’t like what the Harper government is doing, does not detract from that reality.
TimG (Comment #97429)
June 10th, 2012 at 1:01 am
“spare us the NDP talking pointsâ€
I was always a Progressive Conservative for the record – problem is that they don’t exist anymore – they are highjacked by the neo-conservative reform party.
“Canada is a decent fiscal shape today specifically because the system elects governments that can get things done.â€
Canada is in decent fiscal shape today because of the checks and balances put in place by previous governments. At the same time as the Liberals were putting in regulations strengthening our banking sector the neo-cons (Stephen harper included) were saying this was a mistake and that it would restrict market growth etc… Well look what happened – Canada had regulations and the United States had very little – hence why the fiscal condition is better in Canada (better banking sector regulation) (much less leveraging, less derivative trading, little to no subprime mortgage issues).
“IOW – The conservatives got more votes than any other party and that is enough to give them a mandate to govern as they see fit. There is another election in 2015 if you don’t like it.â€
The conservatives lucked out because of a vote split – the rise of the NDP in Canada turned 50 + races into 3-way races instead of 2-way races resulting in conservatives winning. Canadians as a whole do not believe Harper deserves to have a majority, hence why he only received 39% of the vote, much of that was dominated by Alberta and Sask.
Secondly he didn’t campaign on what he has done since – he would never have won the election if he was honest about his intentions. Canadians do not support his gutting of the public sector and Canadians do not support his absolute demolition of environmental monitoring. There is a reason he is no longer leading in Canadian Polls.
“The democratic check we have is at each election where parties that abuse the public trust too much are voted out and (in some cases) the entire party is wiped out.â€
That’s not true. People need to unite behind one party in order to vote out an opposing party – lets put it this way, there are about 30% of Canadians who will vote for the conservatives nowmatter what because philosophically they are very right-wing. If the vote split works out to be 30% Cons, 25% NDP, 25% Liberals, 5% Green, 5% bloc (etc) then this is not a validation that Canadians want him as a leader, in the last election 60% of Canada voted against Harper, they just couldn’t make up their mind which party to all vote for to get him out.
Moncton is a great example:
Conservative – 35.73%
Liberal – 31.29%
New Democrat – 28.84%
Green – 4.14%
So in this example Harper gets the seat despite 64% of the population voting for left-wing parties. They couldn’t choose who they wanted instead but they did say they didn’t want the conservatives quite resoundingly.
tetris (Comment #97433)
“June 10th, 2012 at 9:59 am
In Canada, a majority government has every political and legal right to make [fundamental] changes as it sees fit. Just ask Chretien or Mulroney..”
Yes but here is the difference – if a majority of Canadians voted for Harper then it would be different – fact is 60% of Canada voted against his policies
Secondly (and more importantly) Harper didn’t run on what he has done since getting his Majority. If he did he would of lost. They purposefully deceived the Canadian public about their election platform – now that he’s in public support for him has plummeted because he’s doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. Not to mention the robocall scandal and the blatant lies about F-35s (the crappiest fighter jet around).
tetris (Comment #97432)
June 10th, 2012 at 9:50 am
“In the Canadian case, Elections Canada, the official federal supervisory body, formally requested and was provided with all available electronic records -from the political parties to the various service providers- and was ultimately unable to piece together the source of the robo calls.”
That’s more than disingenuous – that’s dishonest. The investigation is still ongoing and they have tracked at least one group of robocalls to conservative party workers. Furthermore two former workers for the campaign in Guelph have come forward saying they overheard conversations which implicate the MP running for office.
Furthermore, the MP defending the conservatives on the robocall fiasco is himself under investigation for violating federal election laws with respect to robocalls themselves. Lets leave out the fact they they were fined already for violating campaign laws…
I would not be shocked to see when the Cons lose next election a series of investigations into their behavior and charges being laid. Talk about corruption.
Robert,
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The liberals are NOT a left wing party. They are centrist party that swings with the times. A good percentage of those Liberal voters are as opposed to the NDP as they are opposed to the Conservatives. If the Liberals are off the ballot those voters could easily vote Conservative or not vote at all.
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IOW – you attempt to lump all non-Conservative voters into the same ‘left wing bucket’ is disingenuous.
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But the broader question is what kind of government do we want. I say we should be electing someone to drive the bus for 4 years and let them do that job for better or for worse. The constitution and the courts place limits on what they can do. What we don’t want is a situation where nothing gets done without dolling out mountains of pork to various special interests – which is what would happen if parliament actually reflected the percentages of the popular vote.
I think that although some liberals would swing to the conservatives (the more centrist ones) that if an alternative vote system was used you would have seen in the last election more swing to the NDP than the liberals.
I don’t necessarily believe in proportional representation in the truest form but I believe the alternative vote (ranking) system with First past the post would result in a more accurate representation of canadian ideals than the current system. People who vote for the green party for example would be able to have their vote count as they would probably put liberals or NDP 2nd so when the greens get knocked off the ballot by not meeting the set threshold (15% perhaps?) then their votes would go to the 2nd preference.
If all voters voted strategically then the current system would work but frankly canadians vote for people they know won’t win just because they “were always a liberal/dipper” rather than voting for who has the best chance of beating the guys they like the least.
Nevertheless my issue with Majority governments is that they have zero checks and balances – the liberals and conservatives now are showing what happens with majorities that get complacent. They do things like have search and rescue helicopters come pick up ministers for a ride during their vacations at a cost to the taxpayer and then cut search and rescue services in the name of budgetary concerns.
Robert
Please don’t call me dishonest. Elections Canada has NOT been able to trace anything conclusively and has publicly stated that it has no hard evidence for attributing wrong doing by anyone. The rest is [politically driven] innuendo.
And suggesting that a political party must have 50% plus of the popular vote to have legitimacy in a Westminster style first-past-the-post electoral system is very naive.
“toll free numbers are incoming only”
Cite? I’ve received legit calls from toll-free numbers that trace back to the company. They’re usually automated ‘how was our support service’ calls.