Security and seniors are the two major stumbling blocks to overcome in a successful Internet voting bid.
Three businesses submitted RFPs (Request for Proposal) to the Town of Innisfil in an effort to secure its electoral voting contract for the upcoming Oct. 24, 2022 election.
In the RFP, both Innisfil and the Township of Adjala-Tosorontio asked “qualified proponents” capable of supporting both Internet and telephone voting systems in accordance with the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 to respond by Jan. 13.
While Clerk and Town Solicitor Lee Parkin is optimistic about the new electronic and telephone system, some municipal councillors are weary of leaving an election open to web fraud and potential security threats.
Parkin said the companies submitting proposals are in the business of offering secure services.
“Part of the RFP will be demonstrating that they’ve got the security measures in place,” Parkin said.
“We have done this for two elections previously, we’ve had electronic voting and we haven’t had a security incident. So we’re pretty comfortable with the technology, and we’ll certainly be asking our vendor – whoever it may be – to demonstrate, explain and make information available to the public as well, so that they’re comfortable with the security.”
There are more than 38,000 voters in the town and township with an additional eight school-board trustee positions up for grabs.
The RFP states the rationale behind the jump to permanent paperless voting is to increase voter participation by providing 24/7 voting services up to 8 p.m. on election day.
However, even with the availability of voting from your kitchen as an option, only 32 per cent of eligible Innisfil voters checked a box in the 2018 municipal election.
A little farther north, Oro-Medonte councillors voted down their staff’s recommendation to upgrade its system.
Mayor Harry Hughes said it’s wrong-headed to believe voter turn-out will increase with ease-of-use voting, and points to Ramara Township’s numbers dropping by six percent in the last Internet-only voting election as proof of his claim.
“The absolute fallacy that’s out there – if you allow Internet voting, that you’ll increase voter turn-out – has been debunked by every study and every municipal experience that has used the internet voting,” Hughes said.
He points out there was a 62 per cent turn-out in the last federal election, which was typical for a national election, that suffered through a pandemic without electronic voting.
“What we’re really asking here is when it comes to voting in a municipal election, is for somebody to vote once every four years,” he said, adding the current system allows for mail-in ballots for those who don’t want to leave their homes.
Innisfil Deputy Mayor Dan Davidson isn’t a fan of electronic voting for fear of security breaches.
“You know what? The CRA got hacked into this past year – the CRA. Best Buy has been hacked into, banks have been hacked into. It makes you wonder, if somebody really wanted to, I’m sure they could hack into it (a municipal electronic election system),” said Davidson.
In addition to hackers, Davidson is concerned about older populations who may still wish to exercise their franchise in person.
“You can play devil’s advocate so many different ways, you know? There are seniors I know who don’t have cell phones or they don’t have computers. And we know it’s the elderly who actually vote. So to me, I’m not a big supporter of it. So if not everybody is computer savvy, why force it?”
