Former UCP MLA: Fake emails point to Kenney voter fraud

Kenney accused of voter fraud A former UCP MLA said Kenney and his team used fake emails to register voters for the party’s leadership race. Timm Bruch reports.

CTV News has obtained a list of fake email addresses a former United Conservative MLA said Jason Kenney and his team used to register people and to vote for Kenney in the party leadership race.

Since Prab Gill left the UCP, the Calgary-Greenway MLA has accused Kenney of wrongdoing when he defeated Brian Jean in the 2017 UCP leadership race.

Gill said Kenney’s campaign team went door to door before the vote to sign Albertans as UCP members. The now independent MLA alleged the team would use their real name and home address, but create a fake email address to vote for Kenney.

“These emails were registered,” Gill said. “The pins were sent to these emails for voting.”

The domains used—carrying names like tikonamail.com, naneknet.com and link3mail.com—lead to non-existent websites.

Emails sent to those addresses bounce back.

“Somebody really put in their effort to create these emails, to attach these emails to someone. This was a deliberate effort, “Gill said.

Gill also alleges the campaign used VPNs to hide the IP address in order to send multiple ballots from the same computer, an accusation the UCP strongly denies.

One of the real names attached to a fake email address is Gurinder Athwal.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Athwal told CTV News, and added he does not recognize the email address attributed to his name on the list.

His mother’s name is also on the list, but Athwal said she’s not a Canadian citizen.

“No, no, no. She’s a [permanent resident] card holder, not a citizen.”

CTV News contacted dozens of people on the list to verify the claims, but many did not speak English or understand the question.

Gill said Kenney's team targeted neighbourhoods of certain ethnicities.

The Alberta RCMP is aware of Gill’s allegations, and has been in touch with Gill and the Election Commissioner.

In a statement to CTV News, the UCP said it is “confident in the integrity of these results,” highlighting that Kenney won by a margin of 17,287 votes.

“The 2017 United Conservative Party leadership contest followed the most stringent security protocols of any leadership race conducted in Canada.”

With files from CTV Edmonton’s Timm Bruch