Clarington considers Internet voting
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Send to friendIn a report released Thursday Oct 8, the Clarington clerks' department recommends changing the voting method to a combination of conventional in-person voting at polling places throughout the municipality and internet voting during the time leading up to the official election day. The 2006 election in Clarington was conducted entirely by mail-in ballot.
The report expects internet voting to cut costs, produce faster election night results and improve voter turnout. However, internet voting shares several well documented flaws with other distance voting methods such as mail-in or telephone. Those flaws are glossed over in the report, namely potential voter coercion, lack of scrutiny by the candidate or scrutineer. Several residents have complained to council about the problems with the mail-in ballot.
Internet voting also brings in the problem that the security of a system is only as good as the weakest link, in this case the individual PC and its users. PCs are susceptible to virus and worm attacks, often infecting the computer without any intervention by the user, and phishing attacks which con the user into revealing sensitive information like internet banking passwords.
Clarington Council is holding a special meeting Tuesday October 13, 2pm (Bowmanville Municipal Administrative Centre) to consider the election methods report.
Tuesday's council meeting will also consider a new election sign by-law that would ban election signs on public property within Clarington, with the exception of regional and provincial roads. The by-law would also require candidates to post a deposit to be used to pay fines for improperly placed signs.
The agenda, including the reports, is available from the Municipality of Clarington's Weblink document server under Council Agenda for October 13, 2009 (Special).
Voting and Accessibility
I believe the reason given by staff for another change in voting method for elections in Clarington had to do with increased accessibility requirements legislated since the last municipal elections.
I don't think we need to move to internet/phone voting, nor stay with the mail-in ballot, all of which have inherent problems associated with them, not the least of which is the problems associated with "unsupervised" voting.
Most municipalities in Ontario still use the traditional polling station method for voting, so legislation isn't a problem. And neither Federal nor Provincial regular elections are being held by internet nor by mail-in ballot methods. clerks@clarington.net
Elections Ontario makes sure electors with special needs are able to participate in the electoral process. Elections Ontario does not offer any method of "unsupervised voting", such as mail-in or internet or telephone balloting. They use the traditional paper ballot at polling stations.
Elections Canada also conducts their elections using the traditional paper ballot at polling stations. They offer assistance at the polls but also offers a "special ballot voting" to those not able to attend a polling station by special request. The special ballot may be mailed to the elector or may be delivered by an election official to the voter's home and the official may assist that voter in casting their ballot.
When looking at costs of the various methods, according to the staff report, the least expensive would be:
So costs do not appear to be part of the decision process.
For some reason, apparently increasing voter turnout is most important. However, switching to the mail-in ballot didn't have much effect in that area. And basically, those people who WANT to vote, will vote no matter what method is available for them to use. Moving to internet or telephone voting or staying with the mail-in ballot (all "unsupervised methods") does not entice those who aren't interested in voting to vote.
If increasing voter turnout is the desire, then why not put a referendum on the ballot, such as giving the residents a choice as to whether they want an incinerator in Clarington or not. I would submit to you that a simple question such as this would increase voter turnout.
The largest number of Clarington electors is in Ward 1 (19,555) eligible voters at last count. Next is Ward 2 (17,570), Ward 3 (12,442), Ward 4 (11, 531). But we know there will be no referendums on the ballot.
One more concern with internet voting is the timing. If internet voting is approved, the timing should coincide with voting at polling stations. It is unfair to have 240 hours available of vote by internet and only 10 hours by regular ballot.
People who WANT to vote will do so, even if they have to go to a polling station to do so. People who aren't interested won't bother, as usual. Changing voting methods won't change that, but may reduce the credibility of the results.
***My first preference would be to return to the traditional method of voting, with provisions made for those with disabilities who request a special ballot or transportation to a polling station. Or special provisions made for nursing homes and hospitals if requested. The tried and true "supervised" methods I believe are still the best. Just my opinion.
The voting methods should be on the next Clarington Council agenda (October 26) so if you'd like to have your opinion heard, sign up to speak before noon on Friday or write to clerks@clarington.net this week. The election sign bylaw is also being considered.
All voting systems have their flaws
Afghanistan is the perfect example of how a traditional ballot-box-based election can be corrupted - as can any other system. The important thing is to have systems in place which can detect the problems.
I'm in favour of giving people a variety of reasonable options. I would use email or internet voting if it were offered in Whitby.
But more important than how people vote is how they get their information on which they base their vote. Do they have ready access to enough information?
In recent municipal elections, there has been far too few public meetings and generally inadequate press coverage. In addition, most election literature contains only bland acknowledgments of the issues along with the de rigueur candidate bio "Hey, look at me - I'm great and I want your vote"
I believe that if voters were given real opportunities to understand, discuss and debate issues, there were be much more interest in local politics, resulting in higher voter turnouts.
I think we can do better than Afghanistan
I'm OK with reasonable options but in this case it feels a lot like spending money to address a secondary problem. The fact is that remote voting arrangements cannot be supervised, and the chance of error or irregularities is increased. Also, never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence - how many of those Afghani poll clerks knew their jobs the way we understand it?
One complaint with the Clarington mail-in ballot was that many people voted as soon as they received their ballots, and suffered in some cases instant voter regret when they heard of the charges laid against former mayor Mutton.