Telegraph Faces Investigation Over Emails Urging to Vote for Conservatives

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is conducting an investigation into complaints about an email from the Telegraph newspaper urging people to vote for the Conservative Party in last week’s general election, the Guardian reported Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The email was signed by the Telegraph's editor Chris Evans and contained links to the paper's election-day leading article and other political coverage ahead of the elections, the Guardian reported.

"Dear reader…we view this general election as the most important since 1979. It marks a watershed moment: do we continue under the Conservatives…," a screenshot of the Telegraph's e-mail published by the Guardian reads.

According to the Guardian, the email had a disclaimer saying that those who received it had either "agreed to receive marketing messages by email from Telegraph Media Group" or "signed up for this newsletter."

Some recipients complained that they had no idea how the Telegraph got their email address, or that they had only signed up for specific newsletters.

"The Telegraph's email leader, urging our readers to vote for the Conservatives, was sent to our customer database and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. If any readers did receive this email in error, we will, of course, take steps to make sure this does not happen again," the Guardian quoted a Telegraph spokesperson as saying.

According to the paper, an ICO investigation may take at least a few weeks to be completed.

The Conservative party, led by David Cameron, won the May 7 UK general election, securing an absolute majority of 331 seats in the British parliament.