Debut of Internet voting popular with Sudburians

While the city has some work to do in terms of the number and location of polling stations, one aspect of Election 2014 proved popular with the public: voting online.

Of the total ballots cast in Monday's vote, about 26,800 were online votes, 45 per cent of all votes cast. City officials were hoping to hit the 25 per cent mark, so the result exceeded expectations.

“There was a great response from the public,” said city clerk Caroline Hallsworth on Tuesday. “We had many people tell us they had never voted before, but they did this time because they can vote online.”

Locally, the vote was handled by Scytl, a company that handles online voting for several communities in Canada, the U.S., and internationally. A New York Times article on the company in March of this year said the Spanish tech company’s services have been used in roughly 10,000 elections in 35 countries.

A 2012 report on online voting concluded that it tends to increase voter turnout, particularly in advance polls. When e-voting was used in Windsor in 2010, “55 per cent of voters cast their ballots electronically and voter participation was up three per cent, despite an acclamation in the mayoralty race.

“In the rural community of Berwick, 44 per cent of citizens used e-voting and voter participation increased to 52.5 per cent,” the report said.

While many residents expressed concerns about fraud, Hallsworth said Scytl's experienced election monitors who oversaw Sudbury's vote were impressed by how smoothly it went.

While there were reports of a mock voting website, and of people voting multiple times, she said the system worked, and the protocols and experiences from other elections ensured the results were clean. They track IP addresses and have other tools designed to catch attempts at fraud.

And people forget the traditional paper ballot method had problems, too, Hallsworth said. For example, when someone voted, their name was manually crossed off the list of electors, a process subject to error. Online voting, in contrast, can catch errors quickly.

“There were no attacks,” Hallsworth said. “They had no red flags or concerns at all … We had better tracking and better record-keeping than we've ever had.”

And while many Sudburians – particularly seniors -- had trouble on voting day because of a reduction in the number of polling stations, she said they got a lot of positive feedback from older Sudburians, as well.

“Many seniors told us the loved voting online,” Hallsworth said. “We had citizens age 90 all the way to 100 vote online.

“I hope the next mayor and council will look at … the very strong response to online voting and consider it again in the future.”