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Does the Elections Canada decision mean the robocall scandal is dead?

The Conservatives got some more good news today.

Within a couple of weeks of Nigel Wright being absolved by the RCMP for his role in the Senate expense scandal, Elections Canada has decided not to refer the so-called robocall scandal to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Elections Canada launched its investigation in 2012, following complaints about deceptive telephone calls in electoral districts in the last general election campaign.

"Investigators have been able to determine that incorrect poll locations were provided to some electors, and that some nuisance calls occurred," notes the report released on Thursday.

"However, the evidence does not establish that calls were made a) with the intention of preventing or attempting to prevent an elector from voting, or b) for the purpose of inducing an elector by some pretence or contrivance to vote or not vote, or to vote or not vote for a particular candidate.

"The data gathered in the investigation does not lend support to the existence of a conspiracy or conspiracies to interfere with the voting process."

The Elections Canada investigation did not include alleged robocalls in Guelph where former Conservative staffer Michael Sona has been charged under section 491(3)d of the elections act, which prohibits preventing or trying to prevent a voter from casting a ballot in that riding. Sona is expected to appear in court on June 2nd and denies any wrongdoing.

[ Related: Elections commissioner halts robocalls probe, says no evidence for charges ]

The Conservative Party sees Thursday's decision as a vindication of sorts.

"As we've said all along, and as Elections Canada has now determined, the Conservative Party of Canada ran a clean and ethical campaign," CPC spokesperson Cory Hann said in a statement.

"We spend our campaigns identifying supporters and working hard to get them out to vote. For the last two years the opposition parties have made unsubstantiated allegations which have now been proven to be false by Elections Canada. Conservatives will continue to focus on the issues that matter to Canadians: the economy and job creation."

This is the second exoneration, if you will, for the Conservatives.

Last May, Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley ruled, that while phone calls were used to misdirect voters in the the last federal election, they had minimal impact on the outcome.

"I find that electoral fraud occurred during the 41st General Election but I am not satisfied that it has been established that the fraud affected the outcomes in the subject ridings and I decline to exercise my discretion to annul the results in those districts," he wrote, in response to a court challenge led by the Council of Canadians.

"In reaching this conclusion, I make no finding that the Conservative Party of Canada or any CPC candidates or RMG and RackNine Inc., were directly involved in any campaign to mislead voters.

"I am satisfied, however, that the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this court."

Council of Canadians spokesperson Dylan Penner, says that while they're still reviewing the full Elections Canada report, there are still some outstanding questions.

"The Federal Court ruling from the case we were involved in found evidence of widespread fraud targeted at non-Conservative voters and concluded that the likely source of this fraud was the Conservatives’ CIMS database. As Andrew Coyne said, we have the smoking gun but don’t know who pulled the trigger," Penner told Yahoo Canada News.

"We have been mobilizing public support for legislation that would ensure that this kind of fraud never happens again, which is the exact opposite of what the Unfair Elections Act would do."

In a telephone interview with Yahoo Canada News, NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus also cited Judge Mosely's decision and offered a different characterization of the Elections Canada ruling than that of the Conservatives.

"I'm not surprised in that the message we were hearing from Elections Canada at every step of the way was that they didn't have the tools they needed to follow through the investigation. They didn't have the ability to compel witnesses. They weren't getting cooperation from the Conservatives," Angus said.

"And any investigator will tell you, if you can't compel the witnesses, if you don't have cooperation how do you build a case. So unfortunately after three years with a big question mark over the Conservative party, Elections Canada has given up."

[ More Political Points: Public, lawyers differ on whether RCMP should look into underage drinking incident at PM's home ]

Green Party leader Elizabeth May — who has been very vocal about the robocall scandal — says that we still need an independent, national inquiry into the crimes and irregularities of the 2011 federal election.

"This report demonstrates that Elections Canada lacks the necessary powers and resources to get to get to the bottom of the illegal activities of the 2011 election campaign," she said in a media release.

"We know there was an industrial-scale attempt to mislead voters, amounting to criminal acts in the 2011 election. We must not allow it to happen again."

Despite those protestations, right-leaning political pundit Gerry Nicholls says that today is a good day for the Conservative Party of Canada.

"From the very beginning, the media exaggerated the scope of this “scandal”, so today’s ruling is really no surprise," he told Yahoo.

"In political terms, the ruling is a clear victory for the Conservatives, because it kills dead what was a prominent anti-Harper narrative.

"And while the robocall scandal likely wouldn't have harmed the Tories to any great degree, it was an unwelcome distraction that took them off message."

(Photo courtesy of The Canadian Press)

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