Outdated voting packages part of election season

For example, a PIN isn't all you need to vote online. Voters will be asked personal information to verify their identity. And the secure voting system the city is using will automatically track attempts if two people with the same background try and vote.

“So if we get two Darren MacDonalds with the same personal information voting, that is flagged for review,” Hallsworth said.

The voters list in Greater Sudbury comes from the Municipal Property Assessment Corp. (MPAC), the body that determines the value of properties in the city. The list is updated regularly, but even before online voting, she said thousands of the voter information packages were returned because the addresses were outdated.

“We have three bins full of returned packages already – you know, return to sender,” Hallsworth said. “When they come back, we do not open them because they have a PIN in them. They are left sealed.”

But they are registered, the PIN numbers invalidated so no one with that name and address can vote unless they come to a polling station with proper identification.

“So if anyone receives a package for a previous tenant or a previous owner … mark 'moved' on it and return it to the mailbox,” she said. “As you can imagine, when you send out 117,000 pieces of of a mail, a lot of it comes back.”

And Hallsworth encouraged anyone who has moved to have their voting information updated when they do their taxes.

“You just need to check the (appropriate) box on the form,” she said.

While that addresses outdated information, there are other scenarios where fraud could take place. Northern Life has received a report from a father whose two daughters moved out years ago, but he received their voting information. Since it's the same family, it's possible he would know the security questions.

Hallsworth said no system is perfect. Even close to home, there was a voting fraud scandal in French River in 2003 under the mail in paper ballot system. But online voting has been done for years, and service providers who have experience helping cities run the votes have developed methods of detecting fraud.

“They have developed a lot of patterning technology,” she said. “So the software is set up to notice patterns of improper voting. In Halifax, the system flagged a household where four votes were cast from the same IP address in a very short time. That's the sort of patterning the software recognizes.”

The votes were segregated from the main count, and an investigation revealed a father had voted for his wife and two children.

“And he was charged and convicted for voting fraud,” she said. “It's an offence under the Municipal Election Act to vote more than once in the same municipality.”