Conniegate: Difference between revisions

Fraudulent calls were first reported on April 5, 2003, however most of these calls dated back to as far as November 2002. Residents of Tabía, Lakawachee, began receiving calls from an automated telephone number which called itself “Pierre,” wrongfully informing voters that their local polling station had been changed to different locations across Lakawachee. This was regarded as unusual to voters as most Tierradorian government agencies never call citizens to notify them of information such as this, solely contacting by postal mail. Some of these station changes ranged from different places in Tabía (i.e. Arcer Terrace Mall to Tabía North High School), to having voters drive to San Cristóbal, which is a 1 hour and 20 minute drive from Tabía. One voter reported their location being changed to Anders, Anbarsky.  

On April 6, 2003, Elections Terranóq, along with the Lakawachee State Patrol, began an investigation in Tabía, questioning close to 450 people who received calls from the mysterious number. What they were not aware of is that while the calls came from 8 different numbers, they all originated in Santa Cruz, given that all of the numbers began with area code 414, meanwhile Tabía was assigned the area code 856. One Lakawachee State Trooper recognized one of the numbers as the Partéq Pepal Lakawachee headquarters, introducing the PP as a possible suspect for these calls. On the April 6 president debate, Victoría Hombêri was questioned about the robocalls, to which she explained that the calls did not come from her or the PP, and then accused the PST and Aphía Monderíq of attempting a smear campaign against the PP.

The morning of April 7, 2003, Lakawachee State Troopers investigating in the PP’s Santa Cruz headquarters entered a large hidden janitor’s closet, where they discovered three computers automating spam calls, along with Tierradorian census records detailing the voting patterns of 430,000 Lakawachee residents. Later that same day, an advisory message had been issued to Lakawachee-based radio and television stations. It was then determined that the calls were directed towards three groups: Early voters, voters registered under PST, [[Partéq Comminesq|PCq]], and [[Abio Voters Alliance|AVA]], and ethnic Coscivian voters. These were meant to dissuade residents of said groups from going to vote by falsely changing their polling station to an outrageous alternative. In response to this, the PP disabled the computers and closed their San Cristóbal office until April 15, three days after Election Day. Despite this, on April 7–9, 2003, Elections Terranóq received calls from various electoral districts in Mainland Tierrador detailing similar fraudulent robocalls.