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Was Cknw, Global Tv News Duped Into Reporting “fake News” About Surrey Election Fraud?
- October 11, 2018
POSTED BY: DESIBUZZCANADA OCTOBER 11, 2018
Is Election Fraud Story A Smear Campaign Against Tom Gill Or The South Asian Community In Surrey Or Something Much More Insidious?
DESIBUZZCanada EXCLUSIVE: DESIBUZZCanada has received exclusive information that shows the mainstream media is being fed misinformation and "fake news" because neither the Group feeding or in case of one story, nor some members of the mainstream media are checking their facts and making sure that the information fed to them is genuine. Voter fraud is a serious criminal offense and shouldn't be taken lightly and Surrey RCMP say their investigation into alleged voter fraud in the city is “ongoing” and they hope to have an “update” in coming days. But why is this issue being linked to Tom Gill only and not the other candidates – is this a smear campaign as Gill has told the media – if it isn't the accusers need to present proof quickly or let this fake news die.
By DESIBUZZCanada Staff
SURREY – For weeks now, Surrey's South Asian community has been lit up with allegations of voter fraud despite the fact that police only have third-party allegations and no real proof of any individual behind the attempted voter fraud through mail-in ballots.
One Group which calls itself non-partisan but their actions show that they are nothing but partisan. In fact, the Group, which was supposed to be tackling anti-drugs and gangs, but seems to have been created for the sole purpose of Surrey election politics and to further the Group's political and selfish agenda.
DESIBUZZCanada has received exclusive information (see exclusive screenshots of conversation with Fake Ravi and members of the Wake-Up Surrey Team) that shows the Group may be feeding mainstream media "fake news" because neither the Group or nor some members of the mainstream media are checking their facts and making sure that the information fed to them is genuine.
At least two media organizations have been duped into reporting a story based on nothing because the story was made from a fake email sent to the Wake-Up Surrey Group by a veteran political operative (we'll call him POLITICO X to protect his identity) who wanted to see what the Group would do if he sent them a text from a fake International Student at Kwantlen College named Ravi, who claimed in the text to be approached by Men willing to pay him to help with the elections by supposedly doing illegal things.
Politico X said he was shocked when his fake Ravi's text became a story written by CKNW NEWS reporter Janet Brown titled "Surrey students believe they were used in potential election fraud attempt". The story also ran on Global Television's website and is still there. The TV station has also been aggressive in reporting about Surrey election fraud, which has given the South Asian community a black eye even though no election fraud happened and no one has been charged.
Brown reported "as the RCMP investigate allegations of possible election fraud in Surrey, a group of students at a post-secondary institution believe they’ve been caught up in it unwittingly."
Brown kept the student's identity hidden and reported that the student had been approached many weeks ago by a group of men.
“They were asking questions related to our current circumstances and if we were aware of politics in Surrey. We told them we weren’t able to vote,” Brown quoted the student
She further reported that students allege that the men said, “we will give you money if you help with local politics. They asked for our names, number, address and date of birth and in exchange promised to give us $100.” They obliged.
The students said “we did not understand at the time, but now we do, and we’re afraid.”
Politico X sent the email to Wake-Up Surrey on Monday, October 1st and the CKNW-Global TV story runs on Wednesday Oct. 3rd. The story seems to made up entirely from Politico X's text where he talks about the same thing that is reported in Brown's story.
Is it a coincident that Politico X's story is the same story reported or are there other students from Kwantlen who this actually happened to. But this is very suspicious and on at least this story, the mainstream media was duped and bought the stories being fed to them. But why is Wake-Up Surrey doing this and what their motive – perhaps it should be Brown's next story.
Voter fraud is a serious criminal offense and shouldn't be taken lightly and Surrey RCMP say their investigation into alleged voter fraud in the city is “ongoing” and they hope to have an “update” in coming days.
But why is this issue being linked to Tom Gill only and not the other candidates – is this a smear campaign as he has told the media – if it isn't the accusers need to present proof quickly or let this fake news die.
HERE IS THE FULL EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH POLITICO X – The Man Behind The Duping Text To Those Crying Election Fraud
DESIBUZZCanada: Why did you send the anonymous email pretending to be an international student representing others?
POLITICO X: First and foremost, it’s important to note that I don’t live in Surrey, or in British, Columbia. I live in another province, having spectated this election through news, various conversations with friends and family in Surrey, and generally social media chatter. I have been involved in political campaigning, and worked for the government for over 10 years. I have extensive experience in this realm. So, when allegations of mass voter fraud started to become regular discussion in regards to this election, I began to take more interest and started digging deeper, asking friends and family in surrey about this, asking other political operatives in the city, and I was getting varying answers in return: either people have become extremely disenchanted or people are concerned with the validity of these claims. I decided that I needed to test the waters. The only way to expose whether or not there is voter fraud is to dig deep into those propagating these stories and see how genuine they are. Thusly, I took the route of fabricating this story.
DESIBUZZCanada: What did you want to accomplish?
POLITICO X: Exposing the lies and hysteria that paints our community in such a horrible and negative light was my first goal. Our community has been incredibly successful in our capacity to organize and capture political clout and power in this country. All of this has been accomplished with the incredible hard work, blood sweat and tears over the last 30 years. We should celebrate the accomplishments of our community.
DESIBUZZCanada: Do you think genuine fraud was attempted or is there something more sinister behind this scheme?
POLITICO X: Time and time again, it’s proven that voter fraud is a minuscule problem in the Canadian electoral system. Simply put: it doesn’t happen. To whip up hysteria over voter fraud only does one thing: voter suppression. On top of this, we have painted the Panjabi community with such a negative brush that it is going to take years to wash away.
It’s ironic that Wakeup-surrey, a group that was put together to empower the community and discuss how to bring young people out of criminal and violent activities, is involved in whipping up hysteria that only further disenfranchises our community and young people from engaging in the political process. The same political process that can provide solutions to all of these issues.
This makes me question what is really happening behind the scenes with these organizations.
DESIBUZZCanada: Do you think it’s part of a smear campaign against mayoral candidate Tom Gill?
POLITICO X: A cursory look at what is happening and it’s obvious that these allegations are all one sided. If you note, in my fabricated story, I did not mention which candidates supporters approached us (“international students”), yet the subsequent narrative around the story has been that it’s Tom campaign.
I’m not sure why Tom is being targeted, but he is.
DESIBUZZCanada: Do you think this negative campaign succeeded in tarnishing the South Asian community?
POLITICO X: This fabricated story went straight to the mainstream media before it hit our own local media. Global and Surrey-now-leader both ran with the stories (perhaps others that I am not aware of) and we know that the readership of these papers is primarily not from our community, so we can assume that those reading and making judgements are looking into our community and seeing us as “thugs,” and as “corrupting” the electoral system in Canada.
Once again, I want to point out that Wakeupsurrey has (consciously or not) severely tarnished the image of our community by constantly pushing a narrative of us being corrupt, thugs, backwards, bringing Punjab style politics, and generally speaking, unable to engage with Canadian society civilly.
DESIBUZZCanada: What do you think of Wake-Up Surrey – do they need to check facts and get confirmations of actual fraud before they start hawking to unsuspecting and lazy mainstream media?
POLITICO X: As we all know, international students can’t vote in any elections. They are not citizens, have no PR, have no status that gives them the ability to participate in elections. So right off the bat, the story should have been suspect. However, there was no investigation into this story. Wakeupsurrey and one of it’s co-founders, Gurpreet Singh Sahota, did not engage in any due diligence to ensure that this story was valid and instead, propagated this to mainstream news.
This should call to question literally every claim they have made of election fraud prior to this. I was incredibly disappointed and disheartened that this story ran, and then was being discussed to no end in the mainstream and local panjabi media. This was a completely fabricated story. This wasn’t just lazy journalism, it was malicious. We need to have serious conversations in our community about this. I am happy that you are starting these conversations.