OTTAWA: A Conservative campaign worker became the first person in Canada to be jailed for vote fraud Wednesday, landing a blow to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ruling party ahead of elections next year.
Michael Sona, 26, who was convicted in August, was sentenced to nine months in prison over a scheme that misdirected Canadian voters to fake polling stations during the last election.
Harper is already reeling from last month's conviction of his former parliamentary secretary for overspending in the 2011 election and falsifying records to try to cover it up.
Prosecutors and the judge in the Sona case said they believed others were involved, but nobody else has been charged. Sona had claimed he was a scapegoat.
Public Prosecution Service of Canada spokeswoman Ruth McGuirl said she hoped the sentence would "discourage" others from engaging in election fraud.
A flood of complaints from across Canada prompted the probe into "robocalls," but all were dismissed except one involving Sona in Guelph, west of Toronto.
Sona was charged with planning and unleashing a misleading robocall -- or automated call -- that affected 6,000 voters in Guelph in an attempt to keep them from casting ballots in the May 2011 federal election.
Harper said that the Conservatives had absolutely "no role in any of this."
After three back-to-back minority governments, the Tories on May 2, 2011 won 166 out of 308 seats in parliament, gaining their first majority government since 1988.
The Guelph Conservative candidate whom Sona had worked to get elected failed to defeat the Liberal incumbent.
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