Judith Dixon received a call early Wednesday evening.
"There was a young man on the line saying he was a representative of the federal Conservative party, representing Stephen Harper, and he was interested in knowing if any voting members of our family were going to support the Conservatives," she said.
When Dixon checked her call display, the number had a strange area code. She called back and heard a message saying she had reached a "non-working number at the U.S. Senate."
The message said if she felt she had reached the number in error, she should call the Capitol operator. She did, and so did about 30 other Manitobans.
Kimball Winn, with the U.S. Senate's information technology department, confirmed the number is a U.S. Senate number that had never been assigned.
U.S. Senate not involved with calls
Dialing the same number with Manitoba's 204 area code reaches a recording that indicates it's the "Conservative party election line." Callers are asked to leave a message.
"We've heard it was a technical glitch from a call centre we were using," said William Stairs, a spokesman for the Conservatives.
"All our call services to do voter ID are all run out of Canada," he said. "There are no calls being made out of the U.S. Senate on behalf of the Conservative party."
Stairs said the glitch would be fixed before any more calls are made to Manitobans.
