Canada: Manual recount demanded in Leamington after ‘computer glitch’ | CBC News

One of losing candidates in Leamington’s election questions the legitimacy of the vote because of a problem with the computerized tabulation. Robert Tatomir is calling for a review of the results. Leamington hired Scytl, an online voting company, to run its election. Voters cast their ballots online and nowhere elese. Results were expected within half an hour afer polls closed. Instead it took nearly three hours to tabulate results. In a statement Scytl says it detected an “inconsistency” in the naming of certain files, and required additional time to deliver the results to ensure the integrity of the election.

Canada: Close race leads to recount request | Napanee Guide

Greater Napanee mayoral candidate Robert Dorey is asking council to consider a recount of the municipal election results announced on Oct. 27. Dorey said in a statement issued to media and supporters that he has been “inundated with requests from supporters that I demand a recount of the votes cast.” Incumbent Mayor Gordon Schermerhorn regained the mayoral seat on Monday night with 2,907 votes — only three votes more than first-time candidate Dorey, who received 2904. While he doesn’t believe a recount will come up with a different outcome, Dorey does think that there are some major flaws with the electronic voting system that Greater Napanee adopted for the first time this election. “I don’t think that the results will change, but I think that it’s important that we use this opportunity to examine electronic voting in a way that really matters,” Dorey said in an interview with QMI Agency on Wednesday. “I’m doing this to draw attention to the flaws in the voting process. They were obvious to me, and to other candidates and residents in this election.”

Canada: Angry towns consider withholding payment to Internet voting company | Windsor Star

Leamington and Kingsville are considering withholding payment to the company that conducted Internet voting this election after results came in hours later than expected. “I’m very disappointed,” said Leamington clerk Brian Sweet, who is bearing the brunt of complaints in his municipality about how long it took to release voting results Monday night. “We were under the impression we would have our results between 8:30 and quarter to nine, possibly, before 8:30,” Sweet said. Instead, like in Kingsville and Tecumseh, results were not released to waiting crowds until close to 11 p.m. “What was frustrating for us was we were not getting results and we weren’t getting any information or time estimates either,” Sweet said. “We didn’t understand what the problem was.”

Canada: Rise of e-voting is inevitable, as is risk of hacking | The Globe and Mail

It took just one typo in one line of code to elect a malevolent computer program mayor of Washington, D.C. In the fall of 2010, the District staged a mock election to test out a new online voting system, and invited hackers to check its security. A team from the University of Michigan took them up on the offer. They quickly found a flaw in the code and broke in. They changed every vote. Master Control Program, the self-aware software that attempts to take over the world in the film Tron, was a runaway write-in candidate for mayor. Skynet, the system that runs a robot army in the Terminator franchise, was elected to Congress. And Bender, the hard-drinking android in the cartoon Futurama, became a member of the school board. Incredibly, it took D.C. officials two days to realize they had been hacked. …The use of Internet voting is exploding. Nearly 100 Ontario municipalities are using it in Monday’s election – including one that will even ditch paper ballots entirely. Proponents contend it is not only more convenient, but more equitable, giving people who cannot get to physical polling stations the same opportunity to vote as everyone else. But the expansion of e-voting has also caused consternation for some security researchers and municipal officials. They worry that entrusting this pillar of democracy to computers is too great a risk, given the potential for software problems – or hackers determined to put beer-swilling robots on the school board.

Canada: Toronto still years from authorizing Internet voting, while Markham introduced digital ballots back in 2003 | National Post

While Toronto residents line up at the polls Monday, neighbours to the north could well choose to vote with their feet up on the couch at home. And it’s not a new option. Residents of Markham have been able to vote online from anywhere with WiFi for the last 11 years. The City of Toronto has taken baby steps in that direction, but don’t expect everyone to be able to do the same in 2018. In July, city council authorized the use of Internet and telephone voting during the advance vote period for the next municipal election. Council had previously decided to implement online voting for people with disabilities for the Oct. 27 election, but the project was cancelled due to time constraints and failure to provide a secure system. “Online voting has been very well received in Markham since we introduced it in 2003,” said Frank Edwards, the city’s elections co-ordinator. “The number of people who vote online has increased to almost 11,000 people.”

Canada: Confidentiality concerns force Clarence-Rockland to backtrack on bold e-voting plans | Ottawa Citizen

Confidentiality concerns have prompted the city of Clarence-Rockland to backtrack on its plans to hold electronic elections and it has implemented an “emergency plan” to use traditional paper-based ballots. The municipality, located just east of Ottawa, said problems mailing out confidential personal identification numbers (PINs) to thousands of voters in the area ultimately forced it to drop its groundbreaking plans. “It was brought to our attention that the Voting PIN was visible through the window of certain envelopes resulting in both the Voter ID and Voting PIN not remaining confidential to the elector,” said the municipality in a statement released Tuesday morning.

Canada: Advance poll turnout in Toronto sets a first-day record | Toronto Star

Toronto voters flocked to advance polls Tuesday to record the highest-ever first day turnout, the city says. “I think we can say this is a municipal election campaign that has caught the attention of Torontonians and they want their voice to be heard,” said Ryerson University politics professor Myer Siemiatycki. The city said the tally far surpasses the 16,000 votes cast during the six weekdays of advance voting in the 2010 election. That year, some 77,000 votes in total were cast in advance. So just the first day of 2014 advance voting represents about 37 per cent of the 2010 total, with five days left to vote early, through Oct. 19. (Election day is Oct. 27.) On day one of voting in 2010 the total was just 2,690 — although direct comparisons may be somewhat misleading because the advance poll was held at only six locations that year, compared with 45 this year: one in each ward and one at city hall.

Canada: Conservatives denying some Canadians the vote, group says in legal challenge | The Globe and Mail

The federal government’s recent overhaul of Canadian election laws is facing a Charter challenge, one alleging the changes will deny some Canadians the right to vote. The groups behind the case argue that the Fair Elections Act, an amended version of which became law in June after the bill received widespread criticism, will suppress the vote of certain Canadians and make it difficult for some to obtain a ballot on election day. A legal challenge was filed Thursday in the Ontario Superior Court by the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Federation of Students and three individual electors. They are challenging the law under section three of the Charter and Rights of Freedoms, which guarantees citizens the right to vote, and section 15, which says every individual is equal before and under the law. “We believe [the bill] will disproportionately impact disadvantaged groups,” lawyer Steven Shrybman, who will argue the case, told a news conference Thursday.

Canada: Latest Internet voting reports show failures across the board | Al Jazeera

Internet voting, a technology often cited as a solution to the United States’ problematic voting machines, received failing security and accessibility grades in the latest in-depth audit conducted by the City of Toronto. Two of the three vendors audited by the city currently have contracts with over a dozen U.S. jurisdictions for similar technologies. The accessibility report, prepared by researchers at the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University, and the security report, prepared by researchers at Concordia and Western universities, were obtained by Al Jazeera America through a Freedom of Information Act request. … The reports highlight the difficulty in creating a voting system that isn’t more susceptible to corruption than existing voting technology and that is easy enough to use for voters with a variety of personal computer setups, including those with disabilities who often use alternatives to traditional mice, keyboards and screens. …  “It’s clear from the report for Toronto that the systems being considered don’t meet the minimum accessibility standards required,” said Barbara Simons, a board member of Verified Voting, and co-author of the book “Broken Ballots: Will your Vote Count?” who also obtained the reports through a Freedom of Information request.

Canada: Tories refuse to reveal cost for splitting up Elections Canada | CBC

The Harper government is refusing to disclose how much it will cost taxpayers to separate the commissioner of elections from Elections Canada — a move Conservatives insisted upon even though electoral experts said it was unnecessary. The government says all briefing materials on the cost and logistics of transferring the election commissioner’s operations to the director of public prosecutions are cabinet confidences. As such, they can’t be released in response to an access-to-information request. Moving the election commissioner under the auspices of the public prosecutor was a key measure in a controversial overhaul of election laws pushed through Parliament by the Conservatives last spring despite near-universal condemnation by electoral experts at home and abroad. Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre insisted the move was necessary to ensure the commissioner’s independence from the chief electoral officer, who Conservatives contend is biased against their party.

Canada: Ranked ballot option coming to Ontario municipalities | Yahoo News Canada

It won’t help decide the heated race in the upcoming Toronto election — but it could in 2018. The Ontario Liberals are making good on a campaign promise to give municipalities some new tools to supposedly enhance local democracy. A spokesperson for Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin confirms that the Kathleen Wynne government will amend current legislation to give city governments the option of ranked ballots in future elections. “As the Premier indicated in our ministry’s mandate letter, in the course of reviewing the Municipal Elections Act, we will provide municipalities with the option of using ranked ballots in future elections as an alternative to the first-past-the-post system, starting in 2018,” Mark Cripps told Yahoo Canada News. “This work will get underway following the elections on October 27.”

Canada: Tory MLA calls for resignation of New Brunswick’s chief electoral officer | CTV

As calls for a recount of the ballots in the New Brunswick election grow there are new demands for resignations following Monday night’s vote count confusion. Elections New Brunswick is hoping the release of official election results will silence the skeptics, but some politicians say a hand recount is the only way to restore confidence. “There should be a recount. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it,” says outgoing Public Safety Minister Bruce Northrup. New Brunswick’s chief electoral officer, Michael Quinn, insists the election results are accurate, despite tabulation troubles. “Something has to be done there and it’s gotta be done right. I think all 49 ridings have to be redone.” Elections New Brunswick confirmed there were issues with the electronic tabulating system, which was being used for the first time in the provincial election. Later, it was determined that some of the results being entered manually were not being replaced properly by subsequent results coming in from memory cards.

Canada: Elections NB confident in results, but some voters remain skeptical | CTV

Some voters are still expressing concerns about the way ballots were counted in the New Brunswick election Monday evening. The CTV News election unit detected incorrect data in at least a dozen ridings an hour before Elections New Brunswick acknowledged there was a problem, which took two hours to correct. The final results are due to be confirmed on Friday, but some voters remain skeptical about whether the results are accurate.  Elections New Brunswick says it is verifying the vote to make it official, as it does after every election.

Canada: Vote-counting glitches raise concerns for municipal elections | Toronto Star

A computer glitch that marred Monday’s New Brunswick election has raised concerns about the perils of electronic voting, just as many Ontario municipalities are preparing to use the newest ballot-box technologies in next month’s elections. At least two dozen Ontario towns and cities — including Halton, Burlington, Oshawa and Markham — have signed service contracts with Toronto-based Dominion Voting Systems Corporation to let residents use Internet, telephone and vote-counting technologies when they vote for mayor, councillors, school board members and other elected officials on Oct. 27. The company, which counts former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley as chair of its advisory board, was employed to bring New Brunswick’s election agency into the 21st century through the use of vote-tabulation machines. Instead, the firm ended up taking blame for one of the most disputed Canadian elections in recent memory.

Canada: Electronic voting not priority for Prince Edward Island | Charlottetown Guardian

Prince Edward Island is six years or more away from ever adopting electronic voting or tabulation, according to P.E.I.’s chief electoral officer. Gary McLeod says a number of legislative changes would have to be made before P.E.I. could begin using more modern technologies to capture or count votes. And this is simply not a priority right now, McLeod said. “I would like to look at various options out there for doing any type of new technology in the voting process, but … it does cost money, there are more people involved in it,” McLeod said. “It is pie-in-the-sky in the future. There are just other things I have to work on first.”

Canada: Brian Gallant’s Liberals elected amid vote-counting ‘fiasco’ | CBC

Liberal Leader Brian Gallant appears to have won the New Brunswick election amid a vote-counting “fiasco.” With vote numbers still to be found and counted, it appears Gallant’s Liberals have won a majority government. Gallant told a small group of supporters who stuck it out until the early morning hours in Grande-Digue that “it is with a great deal of humility that I accept being the premier of our great, beautiful province.” At 12:30 a.m. AT, the Liberals had 42.7 per cent of the popular vote compared with 34.7 per cent for the Tories. The NDP had 13 per cent followed by 6.6 per cent for the Greens and 2.1 per cent for the People’s Alliance. The Liberals and Tories exchanged the lead in seats all night. The Liberals are now elected in 27 ridings, the PCs in 21 ridings and the Green Party in one riding. The vote-counting process ground to a halt mid-way through Monday night because of problems with the vote tabulation machines. There have been calls by some party leaders for the ballots to be manually counted.

Canada: Progressive Conservative executive says some party members tried to cheat electronic voting system | Calgary Herald

Voting in the PC leadership race proceeded more smoothly Saturday after a rocky start Friday, but some party members tried to cheat the electronic voting process, says a top party official. Kelley Charlebois, executive director of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, declined to elaborate on the attempts to cheat in the race for Alberta’s next premier, but he said Saturday: “We caught them and they won’t be voting.” In addition to the unsuccessful attempts to cheat, a number of party members attempted to vote twice, Charlebois said. “We enabled them to do that so in that case we don’t consider it cheating,” he said. “We’re simply going to disallow the second vote they cast.” Charlebois said party officials didn’t detect anyone voting on behalf of others — which is not permitted — but the party is continuing to monitor phone lines and IP addresses to ensure that is not occurring. The three candidates — Jim Prentice, Thomas Lukaszuk and Ric McIver — declined to comment on the revelations of cheating, but Lukaszuk said he was disappointed about all the problems with the electronic voting process.

Canada: Hacking of online vote thwarted | Calgary Herald

Police may be called in to probe the suspected hacking of the online voting system used to elect Jim Prentice as Alberta Tory party leader and premier-designate, a senior party official said Sunday. PC party executive director Kelley Charlebois said it appears there were multiple attempts to infiltrate the website during the 36 hours of voting that ended at 6 p.m. Saturday. “Attempts were made throughout the voting process to hack into the system,” Charlebois said in an interview. He said there appear to have been several cyberattacks on the website and possibly the telephone voting system. “I can’t say if it was organizations or individuals, I just know that different attempts were made through different IP addresses.” Charlebois stressed the attempts to infiltrate the system were thwarted by internal security systems. He said the party is still waiting for a full report from the company hired to conduct the online vote and will call in police to investigate once the attacks are confirmed. “We certainly feel it is our responsibility — if we suspect the law has been broken — that we contact the appropriate authorities,” he said. “We haven’t reached a point yet where we have confirmed all the information.”

Canada: New Brunswick voting machines erode secrecy of spoiled ballots | CBC News

New Brunswick’s new voting machines may hinder a person’s right to secretly spoil their ballots in this year’s provincial election, according to a University of Moncton professor.  Elections New Brunswick started using the electronic vote tabulation machines in 2008, but this is the first time the units have been used to count the ballots in a provincial election. The machines speed up the vote-counting process and are intended to be more accurate. However, Denis Duval, a University of Moncton professor, said he has a problem with the machines because they beep when a person selects more than one candidate or no candidates on their ballot. “It not only tells the person working the machine, but the beep also can be heard by people in line waiting to vote,” Duval said. He said it’s a fundamental right for people to cast their votes in secret, so Duval filed a complaint with Elections New Brunswick in 2012.

Canada: Registration issues cropping up in Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership race | Metro

With just days to go in the Progressive Conservative leadership race, candidates are raising that the new online voting system may mean not everyone gets a chance to cast a ballot. The party is using an online system and verifying that voters are eligible to cast a ballot by cross-referencing members with the Elections Alberta voters’ list. Ric McIver said his team is working hard to fix issues where potential supporters didn’t align with the list.  “We have had a lot of rejections for a whole variety of reasons and we have just been working through them one file at a time,” he said.

Canada: Progressive Conservatives scramble to resolve voting concerns as campaigns wind down | Calgary Herald

With just days to go before Progressive Conservatives cast their ballots for a new leader, the three candidates are crossing their fingers that problems with memberships will be resolved and trouble with a new electronic voting system will be avoided. Each of the leadership contenders acknowledge that their campaigns have seen numerous submitted memberships rejected by the party because they don’t match up exactly with the Elections Alberta voter’s list. Calgary-Hays MLA Ric McIver said his campaign has been busy dealing with membership rejections, working hard to “clean them up, one file at a time.” “It’s an issue for us. Absolutely. Large numbers, yes,” McIver said.

Canada: Guelph case sees Election Canada pledge to make polling station accessible | The Record

Elections Canada will make sure all polling stations in the next federal election are barrier free after reaching a settlement with a Guelph man who filed a human rights complaint. The complaint was settled through mediation and will ensure all polling stations have either a power assisted door or someone there to help anyone with accessibility issues enter the polling station. “This will be a great step forward for all persons with disabilities in Canada,” said Matt Wozenilek of Guelph. Wozenilek, who is confined to a wheelchair due to a rare neurological disease, took Elections Canada to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal after he went to cast his ballot in the 2011 federal election and found there was no automatic door opener or anyone to help him get into the polling station. A passerby eventually helped him into the polling station. Wozenilek felt this is a violation of his human rights and an act of discrimination.

Canada: Weekend voting and online ballots: Election Ontario considers the future | canada.com

How would you like to vote on weekends? And online or by phone? Those are just a couple of ideas Elections Ontario floats in its annual report released Friday*. The annual report does not cover the recent general election, and much of it would have been written before the writs were drawn up and Ontarians re-elected Premier Kathleen Wynne and sent her Liberals back to office for a fourth term. And though voter turnout ticked up slighty to 52.1 per cent in 2014 from 48.2 per cent in 2011, the number is still low and Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa offers a few ideas to get Ontarians back to the polls. “Other democracies hold elections on weekends and their experience suggests that should Ontario follow suit, voter turnout may increase,” the annual report states. It also points out that schools are often used as polling locations and moving elections to non-school days would facilitate that process. The report also calls for a rethink of the traditional ballot box.

Canada: Conservative staffer Michael Sona guilty of robocalls voter obstruction | Toronto Star

Former Conservative party staffer Michael Sona has been convicted of trying to prevent voters from casting ballots during the 2011 federal election. Sona, 25, was the only person charged in what has come to be known as the robocalls scandal, in which automated calls were set up to target voters in Guelph — most of them Liberal supporters — with misleading instructions on where to vote. After a long recounting of the trial’s testimony, Superior Court Justice Gary Hearn said he was convinced “well beyond a reasonable doubt” that Sona was guilty. Sona hung his head and family members fought back tears as Hearn explained his decision.

Canada: Toronto cancels plan to allow online, phone voting for disabled citizens in 2014 | Toronto Star

Toronto’s government has cancelled a plan to allow disabled residents to vote online and by phone in the 2014 election, saying there is not enough time to build and test the system. Council only approved the online and phone voting in February, a month into the campaign period. The city clerk said she had the authority to call off the project “to protect the integrity of the election” if key deadlines were not met. She did so this month. “The clerk engaged independent third-party experts, including an accessibility and usability expert, two security and cryptographic experts, an external auditing firm and a testing firm,” city officials wrote in a report to council. “There is insufficient time for the third-party experts to conduct a full assessment of the security and accessibility of the (system) before the start of Internet and telephone voting registration on September 8, 2014.”

Canada: Expat voting: Court denies Ottawa’s fight for 5-year rule for voters abroad | CBC News

Canadians living abroad, regardless of when they left the country, will be able to cast ballots in next week’s federal byelections in Ontario and Alberta. An Ontario Court of Appeal judge made the ruling today, denying the federal government’s request for a stay of a lower court ruling that would have extended voting rights to anyone who had lived outside the country for more than five years. Monday’s decision comes just days before voters were to head to the polls on June 30 for four byelections — two in Alberta, two in Ontario. It paves the way for about 1.4 million longtime Canadian expats to vote alongside others who moved abroad more recently.

Canada: ‘Fair Elections Act’ will be challenged in court by Council of Canadians, Federation of Students | National Post

The Council of Canadians and the Canadian Federation of Students announced Thursday they will challenge the Harper government’s new election bill, hours before Gov. Gen. David Johnston was to grant royal assent, making it law. The council and federation will go to Superior Court of Ontario to challenge the law on the grounds that it violates section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the “right to vote in an election of the members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.” The two groups intend to challenge voter-ID provisions that critics say will make it harder for students, aboriginals and seniors to vote, and changes that limit the mandate of the chief electoral officer to promote voting.

Canada: Elections chief pleased with changes to voting bill | Toronto Star

Canada’s election chief says he is pleased with the “significant improvements” made to the Fair Elections Act — a bill he originally slammed as a serious threat to Canadians’ voting rights. “I think there’s been substantive improvements to the legislation,” Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand told reporters on Thursday — his first public pronouncements since the Conservative government bowed to critics and made amendments to the legislation. The big improvements, Mayrand said, revolve around closing political-fundraising loopholes and allowing voters to continue to prove their identity through the vouching system at the ballot box. These were among his top concerns when he told the Star earlier this year that no election reform would be better than the first draft of the Fair Elections Act.

Canada: Feds appeal expat voting rights decision | Canadian Press

A court decision that handed the right to vote to more than one million Canadians who have lived outside the country for more than five years will be appealed, the Conservative government said Monday. In addition, Ottawa said it would seek a stay of the ruling, dashing hopes some expatriates might have had of voting in the byelections scheduled for the end of the month.”Non-residents should have a direct and meaningful connection to Canada and to their ridings in order to vote in federal elections,” Pierre Poilievre, minister of state responsible for democratic reform, said in a statement. “For over two decades, Canada’s policy has limited to five years the length of time someone can be abroad and still vote. That is fair and reasonable.” The application to put the ruling on hold pending the appeal is expected to be heard on June 20.