E-voting popular with Canadians

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This article was published 15/10/2011 (5106 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The vast majority of Canadians are open to the idea of voting online and those who have already done it loved it, the head of a Toronto-based digital media and research firm reports.

Adam Froman, chief executive officer of Delvinia, has been studying the impact of Internet voting since 2003, when the town of Markham, Ont., first used it in its local elections.

Froman was intrigued earlier this week when Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger told the Free Press he wanted to look at introducing e-voting after turnout in Manitoba’s general election came in under 60 per cent.

For the three elections Markham has allowed voters to cast ballots online, turnout has jumped nearly 10 points. That jump came during a decade when turnout in most municipal, provincial and federal elections in Canada has fallen repeatedly.

Froman said one must be careful not to attribute the jump in turnout in Markham solely to the use of Internet voting, but he said it certainly has played a role.

He said 99 per cent of those who used the Internet to vote were satisfied, an approval rating almost unheard of for any municipal service.

Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti said he applauds Selinger for considering it and encouraged him to look at the Markham experience for proof it works.

“It’s very popular with our residents,” Scarpitti said.

Not quite a fifth of voters used the Internet option in 2011 in Markham, and most were already people who reported typically voting in most elections. However, more than a third of voters under age 25 who voted online said they wouldn’t likely have voted if they had to go to the polls in person. Those who used the Internet were more likely to be middle-aged, middle-class and have at least some university education.

Manitoba, Ontario and the federal government are among those looking at whether and how to implement e-voting. Froman said the question they should be asking isn’t whether it can work, but how quickly they can do it.

“There is so much evidence now that the Internet works,” he said.

E-voting was first used in Canada in January 2003 in the NDP leadership contest that elected Jack Layton. Later that year, a dozen Ontario municipalities and townships introduced it for local elections. Halifax used it in 2006 and the Vancouver plans to try it in civic elections next month.

Markham, a bedroom community northeast of Toronto with a population of about 187,000 was the largest of 12 Ontario townships and municipalities to adopt the practice in 2003. Last year, 44 municipalities and townships in Ontario turned to the Internet as an option for voters.

Markham allows e-voting only for advance polls to prevent having to double-check the voters list at polling stations against online votes on election day to ensure people don’t vote twice. Scarpitti said an independent review of e-voting in Markahm found it was secure and posed no greater threat than mail-in ballots, perhaps even less so.

Froman said about 80 per cent of Canadians nationally are open to Internet voting, a number that has remained constant for the last several years.

Elections Manitoba spokeswoman Mary Skanderbeg said the Manitoba legislature would have to amend the Elections Act to allow Internet voting, as the act now requires the use of paper ballots.

But Skanderbeg isn’t sure it will drive turnout up a lot, noting most studies of e-voting show people who vote online would have voted anyway.

Lydia Summerlee, a political research assistant at the University of Guelph studying voter turnout for the Manitoba Institute for Policy Research, said she doesn’t think e-voting will seriously affect turnout until Canadians become more engaged in their democracy overall.

“We need to get to the heart of the matter, and that is a behavioural question, not an administrative question.”

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca