Online election snafus in dozens of Ontario communities raise systemic issues

TORONTO – A major online voting problem that has forced more than 50 Ontario communities to extend the voting hours of municipal voters sparked questions on Tuesday about the integrity of the voting process.

One candidate, forced to wait more than 24 hours more to discover that he had been elected to the mayor, described the process as "disconcerting" and questioned about the opportunity not to have a paper ballot. In addition, Chris Peabody urged the provincial government to study Internet voting and update election laws to reflect new realities.

Instead of celebrating a victory or drowning a defeat in a drink, Peabody and many other political hopefuls found themselves struggling for the better part of the day struggling with the online glitch.

"This really gets you to ask if it's worth all your time and effort," said Peabody of his May mayoral race in Brockton, Ontario. "This is perhaps one of the reasons that there is so much cynicism and cheers in municipal politics this year in Ontario."

In total, 51 municipalities using Dominion voting systems based in Denver, Colorado, had problems. Some have chosen to extend the vote for an hour or two, but others, like Brockton, in west central Ontario, have pushed back the deadline of 24 hours.

In a belated statement on Monday, Dominion blamed an unidentified Toronto company for restricting incoming online voting traffic. Dominion said the problem was solved in 90 minutes, but many voters were still complaining about problems. On Tuesday, the company promised a new statement but gave no details.

"Our priority is to ensure that our municipal election clients in Ontario can provide their constituents with uninterrupted service until the end of the vote," said Dominion Vice President Kay Stimson.

One expert was skeptical about Dominion's fault on a third-party contractor and said communities could never know for sure what really happened. As a rule, said Aleksander Esbad, badistant professor of software engineering at Western University, it is virtually impossible to verify the integrity of online voting.

"It remains only to trust the seller and the clerk that they have done a good job, (but) why should you trust them?" Esbad said. "This is not a solid foundation for a democratic institution that needs to be built from a totally global, multinational infrastructure driven primarily by commercial concerns and that is completely non-transparent."

Esbad said the province "is not monitoring anything" and has no idea what is happening with e-voting.

Peabody, who has always been skeptical of online voting on technical concerns and hacking, wants the municipal election law to be updated. For example, the law prohibits candidates from helping people to vote in polling stations. However, with electronic voting, a polling station is "the gateway to someone who has an iPhone," noted the elected mayor.

"The province should consider regulating it," he said. "They need to study cybersecurity and bandwidth issues, foreign ownership issues."

Ontario House Leader Todd Smith said every municipality will have to deal with the technical issues that emerged on Monday.

"It's clearly the responsibility of the clerks of these municipalities," Smith said Tuesday.

Dominion, which claims to be one of the leading providers of election-counting solutions, billed Brockton about $ 5 for each of the municipality's 7,500 eligible voters, or about $ 40,000. In theory, the vote would cost about 15% less than a traditional ballot, which requires staff and other costs. This year's voting problem may have resulted in higher costs, which Peabody said the company should cover.

The company was also responsible for the vote in the Progressive Conservative leadership race, in which Doug Ford, who later became Ontario's premier, emerged victorious. This contest was also marked by voting problems.

Dean Smith, president of Intelivote Systems, Halifax, expressed his condolences for his rival, Dominion. The company, he said, has a robust system.

"There are always unforeseen factors," Smith said. "When someone closes the pipe and blocks your data flow, there are repercussions."

In the 2010 election, Brockton encountered bandwidth problems with Intelivote. The municipality obtained a free online referendum in 2013. However, unlike in 2010 and 2014, the council voted shortly to eliminate the paper for Monday's vote.

The delays have caused some people to completely abandon the vote, said Peabody.

"Some people have phoned me and said," I really want to vote for you but I've been here for an hour and a half and now I'm done, "he said. .

In total, at least a dozen municipalities extended the vote in their local elections for one day. These municipalities included Pembroke, Waterloo, Greater Sudbury and several communities in the Muskoka area. The rest of Ontario's 417 municipal races went well.