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Robocall scandal: what’s happening to the investigation

While public attention is waning, the investigation into alleged voter fraud during the 2011 federal election is continuing.

To date, Elections Canada seems to be focused on what happened in Guelph, Ont.

Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher — the two Postmedia News reporters who initially broke the story in February — have also continued peeling off layers of the proverbial robocall onion. They have now written over 40 columns on the topic.

Here's what we now know:

Misleading election day calls in Guelph came from RackNine servers:

At the centre of the controversy in Guelph is RackNine Inc., a small Edmonton call centre that worked for the Tory's national campaign and those of at least nine Conservative candidates, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper's own campaign in Calgary Southwest.

According to McGregor and Maher, RackNine's servers were used to make more than 7,000 calls pretending to come from Elections Canada and directing what appears to be identified non-Conservative supporters to the wrong polling locations.

Pierre Poutine is the 'man' responsible in Guelph:

According to court records obtained by McGregor and Maher, the fraudulent robocalls in Guelph came from a Virgin Mobile disposable cell phone registered to an individual with the fictitious name 'Pierre Poutine.'

Investigators determined that Poutine paid for the phone with prepaid credit cards obtained at two Guelph Shoppers Drug Mart locations.

Last week, Elections Canada tried to obtain security video of Poutine's purchase of those credit cards but the store had already erased those records.

IP address used to make the calls:

The IP address used to send misleading robocalls to Guelph voters on election day was the same address used by Andrew Prescott — deputy campaign manager for the Conservative candidate Marty Burke in Guelph.

Last week, however, Postmedia News reported that the IP address did not come from the Conservatives' Guelph campaign office.

There's a link to Conservative Party headquarters:

According to one of McGregor and Maher's latest stories, Elections Canada has extended its probe to Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa.

The story notes that investigators are now combing over access logs for the Conservatives' Constituent Information Management System (CIMS) to determine who downloaded a list of phone numbers for non-Conservative supporters in Guelph. They are now certain the residents in Guelph received the fake robocalls directly from CIMS.

The Guelph investigators:

Elections Canada's Al Mathews has been investigating the Guelph robocalls for more than a year. He has been joined in the probe by another investigator, Ronald Lamothe, who was key player in the investigation into the Conservative Party's in-and-out election financing campaign from 2006.

Other ridings affected:

CTV News reported that Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand has testified that complaints of bogus election calls were received from over 800 people representing 200 of Canada's 308 ridings. That's all 10 provinces plus one territory.

It's unclear how many of these complaints are still being investigated.

What's next?

While Mathews and Lamothe continue their probe, Mayrand is expected to give MPs an update before Parliament breaks for the summer.

His final report could take up to a year.