Media Statement: RMG: DID NOT ENGAGE IN VOTER SUPPRESSION

TORONTO, April 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - RMG provided "Get Out The Vote" telemarketing services to the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) before and during the last federal election. We have provided these services to the Conservative Party for many years and are experts and the industry leader in the field of voter engagement.

To accomplish a successful "Get Out The Vote" campaign, we have hundreds of workers making phone calls to identified Conservative supporters from a database provided to us by the CPC.  Our callers encourage these identified supporters to get out and vote for the Conservative Party on election day. 

In the days just before an election, all parties call their supporters to ensure the greatest possible turnout; to confirm that supporters have the correct voting location;  and to encourage their supporters to vote on election day. In the most recent election this service was particularly crucial, as Elections Canada had changed 127 polling locations.  As a result of those 127 changes in polling locations, over 500,000 voters may have had their voting location changed.

RMG's telephone system distributes calls to our callers from the Conservative Party's identified supporter database. Our callers follow a script that encourages the identified supporters to vote on Election Day. In doing so, the caller would ask if the supporter had received a polling card or knew the location of his or her polling station. The caller would have only one polling station on-screen for that supporter - the most recent address provided by Elections Canada. The caller would only tell the supporter the on-screen polling station address if the caller determined through conversation with the supporter that the supporter had a polling station address other than the on-screen address.

These were not "change of address" calls.  They were "Get Out The Vote" calls that included polling address confirmation. Our scripts for such calling always contain an introduction identifying that we are calling on behalf of the Conservative Party.  

Again, RMG only made "Get Out The Vote" calls to identified Conservative supporters. RMG did not and would not knowingly provide identified Conservative supporters with incorrect polling addresses. The election outcome suggests that we helped ensure that sufficient numbers of Conservative supporters successfully found their way to the correct polling station.  

During the calling, RMG's Quality Assurance managers monitored and reviewed thousands of calls and found no misrepresentation. Managers make every effort to ensure that callers follow the script provided, which includes Elections Canada's most up to date voting locations. Our callers would have no record, on-screen or otherwise, of any 'old' or previous address for a given supporter.  Callers were not provided polling station addresses that the callers knew to be 'new' addresses. In the vast majority of instances the polling address that the supporter already had was the same polling address the caller had on-screen.

As stated above, RMG has never and will never engage in voter suppression activities.  We pride ourselves in providing the industry's highest performance and expertise to the Conservative Party, and to many other fine organizations, so that they can effectively engage their own - and only their own - constituencies.

SOURCE Responsive Marketing Group Inc.