Fake email membership allegations rock Stone campaign prior to final vote

Feb 2, 2018 | 1:32 PM

KAMLOOPS — A startling admission from Kamloops MLA Todd Stone’s campaign with just one day to go before BC Liberal members select their new leader.

The Vancouver Sun’s Rob Shaw is reporting the Stone campaign admits it had 1,349 memberships cancelled for people who had been signed up with fake email addresses.

Stone’s co-chair Peter Fassbender told Shaw “a social media marketing company the campaign had contracted created domain names and email portals to attach email addresses to new members…. many of whom who are non-English speaking Chinese residents from Richmond and Indo-Canadian residents from Surrey.”

Following an audit, the party deemed the memberships invalid and the Stone campaign agreed to remove them.

Earlier this week, a group of Stone’s opponents demanded an explanation over his rejected memberships.

In light of their concerns raised earlier this week, Stone’s opponents are wondering why he’s spent the past several days denying there were any issues with party memberships when cleary there were.

There are six candidates vying to take over the party leadership after former leader Christy Clark resigned last summer.

Party members started voting online and over the phone Thursday. The winner will be announced Saturday night in Vancouver.