Suit filed over federal Don Valley East vote
[attach]5675[/attach]Don Valley East MP Joe Daniel’s narrow defeat of Yasmin Ratansi is now the subject of a lawsuit as part of the ongoing robocalls affair.
On Mar. 23, Don Valley East resident Leeanne Bielli, in conjunction with the Council of Canadians, launched a legal action contesting the results of the election in her riding “on the grounds that there were irregularities, fraud or corrupt or illegal practices that affected the result of the election,” according to the application.
“When somebody tries to defraud people of their democratic right to vote, that’s an important issue,” said lawyer Steven Shrybman who is representing the complainant in Don Valley East, as well as those in six other ridings where similar allegations are being made.
While accusations of suspicious phone calls have been made in several other ridings, Shrybman said the Council of Canadians is supporting these seven applications because of how close the results were and that there were voters willing to file complaints.
He added the Council of Canadians has expert evidence that suggests the type of fraudulent calls reported during the campaign could possibly have had an impact on the voting behaviours of three percent of those eligible to vote. Therefore, he estimated such calls could have affected the overall results in ridings where a candidate’s margin of victory was less than 2,500 votes.
A spokesperson for Daniel, who won the riding by 870 votes over Ratansi, said the MP would not comment on the issue, citing ongoing litigation.
Ratansi, who said she did not hear of the legal actions until after they were launched, said during and after the campaign she heard from constituents complaining about three types of calls. She said the first were calls made to Liberal supporters late at night from callers claiming to be from her campaign.
“We told people we wouldn’t harass them,” she said. “Why would we harass our own supporters?
“The second issue was basically people getting a call saying ‘a vote for Ms. Ratansi would result in Jack Layton becoming the Prime Minister.’ That happened especially after the two debates.”
She also said there were some reports of people being directed to incorrect polling stations via calls made on election day. Although she said she didn’t think much of the calls at the time, she said she now wonders what kind of impact they had.
“Maybe it had an impact and if it did, and people are complaining about it and have launched a lawsuit, I would like to ensure that we get back to democracy,” Ratansi said. “We are sending our troops to protect democracy, we cannot be practising voter suppression here in Canada.”
Although Elections Canada has said it is investigating the issue of suspicious calls, it would not comment on specific ridings. Shrybman said there is no way of knowing whether or not Elections Canada is investigating complaints made in Don Valley East or any of the seven ridings included in the litigation.
Even if Elections Canada were to find evidence of voter suppression in these ridings, it has no power to overturn the election results, which is what the Council of Canadians said it would like to see. Only a judge has the ability to void election results.
“The Council of Canadians thinks that the applications are sound,” Shrybman said. “The results should be overturned because people were defrauded of their democratic franchise and there should be byelections.”