Random Access

If online voting were available in the municipal election, 82 per cent of residents participating in a poll released today say that it would increase the likelihood of their casting a ballot.
Since just 19.9 per cent of Mississaugans bothered to cast their votes in the last municipal election, that’s information that has to catch the attention of administrators and politicians at City Hall.
Turnouts in municipal elections have generally been dismal in Mississauga (23.25 per cent in 1988, 23.72 per cent in 1991, 24.23 per cent in 1994, 20.9 per cent in 1997, and 25.6 per cent in 2000) but last election marked a particular low.
The Town of Markham is the largest in Ontario to experiment with Internet voting. In 2003 it garnered a 300 per cent increase in the advance poll, where the method was used.
The so-called e-democracy poll released today by Delvinia Interactive contains some other valuable information. Not surprisingly, young people are the least likely to vote at traditional polling stations but the most likely to prefer an online ballot.
One in four of the 17 per cent of Markham voters who used their computers to vote in 2003 had not voted in the previous election, so the process appears to appeal to audiences that municipalities are not reaching now.
Pina Mancuso, who heads the team running the municipal election for the City of Mississauga, says it is keeping a close eye on the e-voting developments.
“The feeling we get is that many people still like the traditional piece of paper for voting,” Mancuso said this morning from her City Hall office. The turnout in Markham was not so dramatically high that Mississauga is considering switching immediately to the system.
There are legitimate security concerns.
“The integrity of the system” must be maintained at all costs, said Mancuso. Since people would register with City Hall, then would be sent Personal Identification Numbers, there is always the possibility that someone in the family could vote for other members.
“You can open up someone else’s mail at home,” said Mancuso.
“We are not in someone’s den to monitor it,” she said.
Then there’s the issue of secrecy. Someone’s vote could be tracked by hackers through the PIN number.
All that aside, Mancuso thinks online voting probably is coming eventually in one form or other. Huge banking transactions are done on the net and security issues are minimal.
She points out that the possibility of fraud exists in every system, including the paper ballot.
Yes, we know all about that in Mississauga. Can you say David Buchanan? He was the phantom candidate who helped Rosemary Taylor beat George Carlson in a school board race in 1994. Taylor was subsequently convicted of fraud and lost her seat.
We’ll probably never completely do away with the paper ballot but the e-ballot is coming sooner rather than later and that can only be a good thing as the computer generation matures into tax-paying, kid-raising folks with a stake in the community and a yen to make sure Mississauga is well governed.
One of the main reasons the City may not be on the e-vote bandwagon as quickly as other municipalities is the fact that it bought its current optical ballot-scanning system for about $1.8 million for the 2000 election and wants to get its money’s worth out of that.
Since we are now moving to four-year municipal terms, surely some type of pilot program for computer balloting can be in place in time for the 2010 go-around.