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Few hiccups with online voting, says city

While the city deemed its new online voting platform a success Friday morning, the new method to cast a ballot in the municipal election has not been without its controversy. By 9:30 a.m. Friday, 22,507 Sudbury residents, or roughly 19.
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Rene Trudeau used the city's Election Bus to cast his ballot on Oct. 22. The bus was one of several ways for Sudburians to cast their ballot. Another is online voting, and the City of Greater Sudbury says it is confident in the safety and security of its online voting website. By 9:30 a.m. Friday 22,507 eligible voters cast their ballots online for the municipal election. Photo by Arron Pickard.

While the city deemed its new online voting platform a success Friday morning, the new method to cast a ballot in the municipal election has not been without its controversy.


By 9:30 a.m. Friday, 22,507 Sudbury residents, or roughly 19.5 per cent of the city's 115,000 eligible voters, cast their municipal election votes online.

City spokesperson Shelley Kasunich said 95 per cent of the feedback the city has received from people who have voted online has been positive.

“The only hiccups we received were at the beginning of the online vote when people hadn't checked if they were on the voters list and didn't receive their voter information package,” she said.

But the online voting website itself – greatersudburyvotes.ca – has proven to be safe and robust, Kasunich said.

The city hired technology company Scytl to design the website with the same transport layer security encryption protocol most online banking and shopping websites use to protect sensitive financial information.

Despite the security measures in place, some residents have attempted to point out flaws with the online voting system.

A city employee voted twice – online and in person – to demonstrate how the system could be abused.

But Kasunich said the employee's second vote was caught by city clerks – who look for duplicate votes every day.

“We want to do whatever we can to protect the integrity of the vote,” Kasunich said.

Because the city employee's actions were illegal, Kasunich said police are now investigating the matter.

Another Sudbury resident created a copy of the official online voting website to show how easily less tech-savvy voters could be deceived.

While the website looked like an exact copy of greatersudburyvotes.ca, it did not record any voter information.

Kasunich said the duplicate website was shut down, and that matter is also under police investigation.

At least one mayoral candidate has said he does not see online voting affecting the election results.

“Quite frankly, I don't think it's going to make that big a difference,” Dan Melanson said Friday. “I think the bigger difference for this election and its turnout is going to be the fact that people are saying, 'Enough. We have to change directions. We have to take control and start moving forward.'”


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