A few weeks ago, I revealed the curious conflict of interest faced by the organisation funding the case for electoral reform. Now, it seems that ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ (YTFV) has adopted a very peculiar new tactic: let’s call it the ‘erectile dysfunction strategy’ - certainly, it’s one worthy of the most unscrupulous online pharmacists.
The pro-AV gang have taken to spamming innocent members of the public and, worse, seem to be claiming that those they spam are ‘registered supporters’. Earlier, I spoke to Henry Chance who sits on Bitterley Parish Council in Shropshire. Though he never signed up to their campaign, he has been inundated with pushy correspondence from YTFV. As he said:
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"I'm rather surprised that I'm getting strongly-worded emails from a campaign that I don't support. It's mischievous and, frankly, slightly idiotic."
Mr Chance believes that ‘Yes’ took his email address following his brief involvement with a Power 2010 polling event a few years ago. After that, Power 2010 kept his details and, he believes, shared them with the Yes campaign. I think they did too. In fact, I've had sight of a Yes Campaign report from November which specifically states that:
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"a number of partner organisation mailing lists have been moved to one database. After removing duplicates we start the campaign with 150,000 email addresses."
But that’s not all. In their application for public money to fund their campaign, the Yes Campaign told the Electoral Commission today that they have 'approximately 150,000 registered supporters who receive regular email updates'.
It it almost as if the recipients of junk mail have mysteriously transformed into ‘registered supporters’. But if the campaigns ‘150,000’ 'registered supporters' include Mr Chance and others whose email addresses were obtained long before the Yes campaign ever existed, the figure is plainly false.
Regardless, the campaign is guilty of a simple but suspicious manipulation of private information. If you’re a victim, you can exercise your rights under the data protection act here.