andrew boddington Archives

The story broke on PerezHudak.com earlier today. It is rumoured that the Hudak campaign filed a number of their membership 1.5 hours late of the deadline.

I’m hearing that the Tim Hudak campaign has failed to meet a deadline for submitting some of their paperwork, and as a result many of their memberships may be in jeopardy:

As you probably know the deadline to submit actual membership forms with signatures was today for the leadership campaigns – an electronic list was submitted last thursday to the party by campaigns.

Apparently Team Hudak submitted their forms 1.5 hrs late today and could result in all their sales being disqualified.

Rumour is that the Christine Elliott campaign is pushing to have these members struck from the list of eligible voters for the leadership election. The Leadership Election Committee is meeting tonight to consider the matter.

I’ve learned that about 5,000 memberships may be in questions. This was confirmed to me by sources close to both the Elliott and Klees campaigns.

Yet, where the story differs, and where it may have instead developed, is in the Elliott campaign reaction. I received this from the Elliott campaign addressed to the Party.

Dear Committee,

It has come to our attention that there has been a breach of Section 5 (b) of Guideline No. 2 issued pursuant to the 2009 Leadership Election Rules (the “Rules”) by other leadership campaigns. This is an unfortunate violation of a very clear set of rules.

The Leadership Elections Committee has a tough decision ahead of them regarding any reprimands it may levy, but the position of the Christine Elliott Campaign is that all members, who signed up in good faith to vote in this Leadership, should be given that right to vote, regardless of any error made by these campaigns.

This leadership race is an excellent chance to showcase the very best of the Ontario PC Party and it is in that spirit that we strongly urge you to permit these members to vote, even if they were invalidated by campaign error.

In the interest of fairness, let them vote.

Sincerely,
Andrew Boddington

Andrew G. Boddington
Christine Elliott Campaign

This is either a sportsmanlike gesture from the Elliott campaign or an attempt to bring more attention to the issue and flesh it out within the news cycle.

UPDATE: I’ve heard that Elliott’s campaign lobbied the Leadership Election Committee all day to toss the Hudak memberships, but when they received a “definitive no”, that’s when the strategy changed to put out a statement supporting the memberships in question.

UPDATE: I’ve received formal communication from the Hudak campaign explaining what went wrong,

Regarding your story posted tonight, the issue in question requires an important clarification.

All memberships were submitted as per the established Party Rules before the required cutoff. Any member who signed up before 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 14 is entitled to vote next month.

This is simply an administrative issue. Because of the large number of memberships submitted to our campaign, we asked that an extension to file supporting documentation be granted to all campaigns more than 48 hours in advance of the deadline. We had no indication from anyone at the party that this request for an extension would be refused. The party failed to respond to our request until after the deadline, upon which we immediately filed all supporting documentation.

All memberships submitted by our campaign are valid.

Jeremy Adams
Communications Chair,
Tim Hudak Campaign

I received this internal memo from a source close to the Hudak campaign,

MEMO TO: TIM HUDAK TEAM

FROM: CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS

RE: MEMBERSHIP CUT-OFF

Tim Hudak today congratulated his team for signing up more new members than expected in the Ontario PC Party leadership race.

“We had our internal benchmarks, and you outperformed expectations,” Hudak told volunteers. “You signed up 14,000 new members, and made us the first and only campaign to build grassroots, on-the-ground organizations in each and every riding.”

Though final numbers are still being counted, a clear pattern is emerging: while other campaigns found support among a small group of corporations and high-rollers, donors to the Tim Hudak campaign are from a broader group of grassroots members and small, individual donors.

With over $200,000 now raised we’re on par or above all the other candidates.

We’re all going to continue to work hard and convince the entire party membership that Tim is the right person to be our leader, and the right person to be the Premier of Ontario.

and this internal memo from within the Christine Elliott campaign,

MEMO – CONFIDENTIAL

To: Campaign Team
From: Andrew Boddington
Date: May 16, 2009
RE: Membership Sales

Team,

With membership cut-off now behind us, I wanted to touch base and let you know how well we have done.

The Party is reporting the total membership now stands at 40,000 people, which is roughly 32,000 more members than when we started this race. This is great news for our Party as we look to defeat McGuinty in 2011.

Thanks to your hard work and tireless effort we have managed to turn this election into a very tight race. With all campaigns having now submitted their memberships, the Party’s Executive Director Christine Hogarth called it a “real horse race” in the news this weekend, and for good reason – we are literally neck-and-neck with the other campaigns.

We will gladly let the others talk about numbers, but remember the other campaigns will always exaggerate their support. We’re not playing that game. What I can tell you is that our final membership push – literally the last few days worth of work – really paid off. Our team submitted approximately 1/3 of the memberships that were dropped off on the evening of the deadline. This result points to two very important facts: 1) Christine has the momentum going into the persuasion phase; and 2) we have the hardest working campaign team in this race.

In the coming days you may hear membership figures cited by the other campaigns – I received a leaked memo from another campaign team, for instance, that told its volunteers they signed up “14,000 new members”. This is an example of how campaigns often cite inflated numbers out of desperation. Disregard these numbers for what they really are: exaggerated figures intended to boost the spirits of volunteers who expected a coronation, and now find themselves in a horse race.

We had a remarkable first phase of the campaign comprised of fantastic events, and great media coverage. Few people could have guessed we would be able to achieve this much, having only started this race in April. We have succeeded in erasing the lead of a supposed “front runner” and Party officials confirm this race is wide-open. This is amazing work, and I thank all of you for making it possible. You can proudly spread the word about Christine’s momentum to other party members.

Great work everyone.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Andrew G. Boddington
Christine Elliott Campaign

Meanwhile, a source from the Frank Klees campaign boasts that their membership numbers have surpassed 10,000.

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