Automated

So, over the last couple of weeks the news cycle has been dominated by the robocall scandal. I'm not sure if the average Canadian cares or not but it sure seems to be a lot of drama in Ottawa.

I don't know if the Conservatives or any other party for that matter used robocalls to confuse or discourage voters. Honestly, I don't really care. I'm smart enough to research what each party and candidate is proposing and I always seem to be able to find the proper polling station. I can see how this could be annoying but so is all the spam I get in my work inbox.

Since there is no requirement to disclose who you intend to or did vote for, using a computer to contact people you believe will vote for the opposition without human interaction to attempt to confuse them or annoy them seems to be a very risky tactic.

If you don't know who you are contacting, if you don't know if all the members of a household intend to vote the same way, and if you don't even know if they have accurately disclosed who they intend to vote for, don't you think that using a computer to call and confuse you is a dumb idea?

I have never run a political campaign but I can assure you that if the race is close I just want to ensure that my message is out there and is accurate. Trying to get people to not vote runs too much of a risk of getting people who would have supported you to not vote.

Now it seems that someone was using robocalling. It did take around 9 months for this atrocity to surface. If it was really an issue, you would think it would have boiled to the surface a bit quicker so maybe this whole thing is blown out of proportion. Like I said, I really don't care. The constant nagging in the House of Commons looks petty but it gives journalists lots of fodder to fill their papers and airtime.

Like everything else petty, this will pass. It may turn out that someone was acting without support or maybe a key person knew about it. It doesn't matter, it's just taking time away from real issues. What's even worse is this one isn't as funny as the #tellviceverything campaign was.