…RackNine, the Edmonton company that suspect “Pierre Poutine” used to send voters to the wrong polling locations, is operated by Edmonton businessman Matt Meier, with the help of Rick McKnight, who is identified variously as head of marketing and web developer.
Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen are unable to find anyone who knows McKnight, even though he has a healthy online identity, including 551 Facebook friends, many of them prominent.
Meier and his lawyer declined Monday to clear up the case of the mysterious McKnight.
Until recently, McKnight was listed as web developer on the LinkedIn business website, the only other North American employee with a listing under RackNine. His entry says that he studied computer science at Stanford University, and that he was born on Jan. 1, although it doesn’t list the year.
Postmedia was unable to confirm that he attended Stanford…
…Meier, who is said to be helping Elections Canada with their investigation and has repeatedly said he had no knowledge of the “Poutine” robocalls, has declined to comment on McKnight’s identity.
In an interview, when asked how a reporter could get in touch with McKnight, he said “you don’t,” and hung up.
Later, he referred queries to his lawyer, R. Justin Matthews, who offered a cryptic reply.
“How does one define a real person?” said Matthews in an email. “Would a web-design employee that chooses to use a different name online (which some people seem to do these days) be considered a real person?”
Matthews said he would not reveal McKnight’s identity, and would not confirm that he is a Canadian…
