Region not ready for online voting
Posted Oct 22, 2010 02:15:26 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A record number of Ontario municipalities are offering internet voting this year. 44 communities are offering the service to a total of 800,000 voters, more than double the 19 municipalities that provided an online voting option in 2006.
But Waterloo Region is not among them.
“We have certainly been following municipalities that have used internet voting,” says Kitchener Clerk Randy Gosse. “We would certainly be looking at moving towards that because it offers a lot of convenience.”
But Gosse cites cost and security concerns as two issues keeping Waterloo Region on the sidelines.
Gosse says internet voting would virtually double the cost of operating a municipal election because the city would still also offer the traditional paper ballots. And he believes security wrinkles still need to be ironed out.
Researchers from Princeton and the University of Michigan — demonstrating what they felt were vulnerabilities in e-balloting — hacked into two supposedly secure touch-screen voting machines and reprogrammed them to run Pac-Man.
Another factor for Gosse is whether or not internet voting actually results in greater turnout. And the jury is still out on that.
Almost half of the 6,000 people who attended advance polls in Burlington earlier this week used the online option.
Something that may surprise you is the demographic of online voters. Contrary to popular opinion, 18-24 year olds are actually the lowest users of internet voting.
“I think what that shows is that it’s not necessarily about whether we offer the internet or we double the number of voting places, it’s really about being engaged,” Gosse notes.
If it was proven that online voting increased turnout, Gosse says it would be well worth the additional cost.
Advance polls in Waterloo Region saw an increased turnout this year compared to 2006, with 37% more people casting an advance ballot in Kitchener, 19% more in Cambridge and 4% in Waterloo.
The municipal election is Monday. Extensive coverage of the The Local Results begins at 8 PM on 570 News.
