For Immediate Release

Fact Check website target of cyber attack

“It’s hard enough battling for democracy with limited resources without opponents targeting our website with dirty tricks,” says Anita Nickerson, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada.

Within two days of its launch, a new fact check website, prorepfactcheck.ca, was shut down by more page requests than the server can handle. This is the second time a pro rep information site has been attacked. The first incident involved Fair Vote Canada’s own website in June.

Fair Vote Canada’s technical expert believes that this was an intentional attack targeted at the ProRepFactCheck.ca website to take it offline. This type of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack would not usually be carried out by a low-level hacker, because it requires the use of a botnet usually associated with sophisticated groups of hackers.

The Fact Check site is designed to help the public separate fact from fiction in the debate on pro rep by subjecting claims made by both sides to scrutiny by electoral reform experts.

“Hacking websites is dirty pooI,” says Fair Vote Canada BC’s President Gisela Ruckert. “We’re deeply concerned that someone is so determined to prevent voters from seeing what electoral reform experts have to say that they are resorting to interfering with this referendum by shutting down the sites. You have to ask yourself who is behind these attacks, and what they have to lose if pro rep is implemented.”

Fair Vote Canada BC is a volunteer-powered citizens campaign for proportional representation with 30 local teams across BC.

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Fair Vote Canada / Représentation équitable au Canada