VANCOUVER — The Peter Milobar campaign is raising the alarm on technical shortcomings in the BC Conservative Party’s membership system, demanding real-time access to the database and an independent audit of its back end to safeguard the integrity of the leadership race.In a letter to the party’s Leadership Election Organizing Committee, Milobar's campaign manager Mark Werner said the absence of a live portal or dashboard — the feature the campaign expected when the party leased and renamed the former BC Liberal system BC Win as BC GO — is making it “nearly impossible to ensure the full integrity of this race.”Campaigns are instead receiving only weekly email spreadsheets listing the members they have signed up through their individual portals, according to the letter.“We have reason to believe that our campaign has sign-ups that went into the party site that we cannot see or identify,” Werner wrote..The Milobar team is also pressing the party to grant qualified database auditors access to inspect the BC GO system’s back end under strict confidentiality protocols. Those auditors, Werner said, “may be able to offer technical solutions to resolve these ongoing failures.”Werner pointed to synchronization problems involving the database, the Stripe online payment platform and the Simply Vote voting system. He drew on his experience managing Ellis Ross’s 2022 BC Liberal leadership campaign, where rumours of irregularities damaged party unity.“My primary goal is to ensure the Conservative Party of BC emerges from this race stronger and more unified, regardless of the ultimate victor,” he wrote.The other five leadership campaigns have not endorsed Milobar’s demands..Since the leadership race began the party has signed up more than 14,000 new members, expanding its rolls from roughly 6,000 to more than 20,000 this week.The Milobar campaign’s concerns come just before the first planned Conservative Party of BC leadership debate next week in New Westminster, where Milobar is currently the only leadership candidate who remains unconfirmed for the event as of Wednesday.
