It was only a matter of time before a Conservative confirmed what we already know:

The Conservative Party’s central campaign office in Ottawa takes charge of all Elections Canada voter lists and candidate voter identification lists, including the addition of voter telephone numbers, for all of the 308 Conservative candidate campaigns in federal elections, a veteran Conservative MP says.

Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, Sask.) explained the Conservative Party’s central control over candidate campaign voter-information lists in the midst of a growing controversy over alleged attempts by Conservatives to suppress the turnout of voters who supported other parties in the federal election last May.

So much for the local lone gunman, riding-by-riding anarchy that Conservatives suggested—before they desperately turned to blaming the Liberals for suppressing their own voters, and even Elections Canada.

And so much, now, for Harper-imposed omertà outside the talking-points. We may never hear of poor Vellacott again (which wouldn’t be a bad thing).

Central control. Who would have guessed?

[H/t National Newswatch]

PS: Anyone still think that the Con election strategists are innocent parties in all this? Connect the dots: the rest of us will be happy to provide the crayons.

It’s amazing, to me at least, that the Manning School for Scandal could be so utterly brazen about its election-stealing curriculum as to sign up the unquiet former NUPGE heavyweight John Fryer. What delusions of invulnerability were at work there?

[H/t Jymn]