While there were “suspected instances of potential identity fraud” in the 2017 United Conservative leadership vote, the Alberta RCMP said Friday there wasn’t enough evidence to lay charges.
In 2019, the RCMP received a complaint about the alleged wrongdoings in the 2017 leadership race and voting contest to pick the new UCP leader.
The RCMP opened an investigation.
The first allegation was that leadership candidate Jeff Callaway entered the race solely to attack another candidate and planned to withdraw from the race and endorse Jason Kenney.
Elections Alberta investigated contributions to Callaway’s campaign.
After 170 interviews and examining more than 25,000 related emails, the RCMP “did not uncover evidence to establish that Callaway or any other person committed any criminal offence,” RCMP Supt. Rick Jane said.
The second allegation was that voter fraud occurred in the UCP leadership contest, particularly that emails were created in order to receive PINs and vote on peoples’ behalf without their consent or knowledge.
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The RCMP investigation found “several suspicious cross-sections of voters where multiple votes were cast from the same phone number, or originated from the same IP address.
“While the Alberta RCMP determined that there were suspected instances of potential identity fraud, there was insufficient evidence to charge any suspect. Again, there was no evidence that any leadership candidate orchestrated these relatively rare instances,” the RCMP said in a news release.
Jane said that the number of potential votes at issue — less than 200 — would not have impacted the leadership contest. Kenney won with 61 per cent of the vote — 36,625 votes.
“Albertans can be confident that a thorough investigation, independent of government, was conducted,” Jane said.
He said the RCMP doesn’t normally speak on cases where charges are not laid but said this case is rare and important to all Albertans.
More to come…
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