Robocall recipients can challenge election of seven MPs, including cabinet minister John Duncan

The voters allege they received fraudulent calls advising them that their polling-station locations were changed in the 2011 election.

They are being supported by the Democracy 24-7 Legal Fund, which was launched by the Council of Canadians.

The Conservative party tried to have the case dismissed, but that was rejected.

The ridings being contested are all held by Conservative MPs, including Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister John Duncan, who represents Vancouver Island North. He won by 1,827 votes.

Other contested ridings include Yukon, Don Valley East, Nipissing-Timiskaming, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Winnipeg South Centre, and Elmwood-Transcona. They're all held by Conservative backbenchers.

To support their case, the applicants have submitted to the court a study that concluded tens of thousands of Canadians received phony robocalls, which reduced turnout in the May 2011 election.

Analysis by EKOS Research Associates determined that the vote was suppressed between 0.8 percent to 2.2 percent in the seven ridings, whereas the margin of victory in these contests was between 0.03 percent and 2.02 percent.

The study also concluded that 16.9 percent of voters in these ridings received calls relating to the location of their voting stations, and of those, 22.3 percent were told it had changed.

Of those who were informed of this, 32.6 percent intended to vote Liberal, 28 percent intended to vote Green, 25.6 percent intended to vote NDP, and 10 percent intended to vote Conservative.

According to this study, 42.5 percent of eligible voters citing calls about polling-station locations said the caller had claimed to be from Elections Canada.

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.