Canada: Security a concern for online voting | Timmins Press

It might seem automatic to include online voting in municipal elections at this point in history, but a report from Elections Ontario has some city councillors re-thinking that stance. Ironically, city councillors will be using the old-school method of raising their hands in a vote next week to decide the future fate of Internet voting in Timmins. The matter was deferred last week after council requested a review of the Elections Ontario report about municipalities adopting Internet voting. “Although the report is detailed, it doesn’t go into a lot of specifics,” said city clerk Steph Palmateer on Monday. “Many communities have been using online voting, some have decided not continue, but it doesn’t explain why. Interestingly enough, all the electoral districts that use online voting, there’s only been one report of a security breach, and that’s a pilot project in the United States.” However, that single reported breach of security was enough for Coun. Todd Lever to question if the security of local elections would be compromised. During the project, students and professors in Maryland were asked to try to hack the system during a fake election. “I don’t want to be alarmist, but what stood out to me in the report is, in 2010, in Washington D.C. … online voting was compromised by a group of students and professors,” said Lever. “Within 48 hours of system going live, they gained complete control of the election server.” Officials did not detect the breach for nearly two business days.

Estonia: Electoral Committee Launches E-Voting Tests | ERR

Officials begin a three-day period of testing Estonia’s e-election system today, and voters can also participate. The testing comes in light of the fact that the upcoming local government elections will be the first in which Internet voters will be able to verify that they have voted – a sort of electronic receipt, reported ETV. Those wishing to vote online, as has been possible in Estonia since 2005, must download the voting software and log in with their national ID card or mobile ID. Despite its reputation as an Estonian success story, e-voting has been a controversial issue that has been challenged by political opposition, claims of security vulnerabilities and an ensuing Supreme Court case.

Editorials: Electronic voting won’t solve the two biggest problems with the Australian system | Luke Mansillo/Sydney Morning Herald

Americans love their democracy. As soon as one election is over people start campaigning for the next one two or four years away. There is no other nation on this planet as keen on elections as Americans. In 2000 Arizona held a primary election with the option of internet voting. This was a world first and was thought to completely revolutionise voting as it was the first legally binding public election. The only problem was all Macintosh computers failed to register a vote when users thought they had registered a vote. People were not happy to have their democratic right as a citizen taken off them because of the technology. This disenfranchisement and failure of the voting system is a major reason why we do not universally have internet voting or other forms of electronic voting today. Electronic voting also has drawbacks. It was detailed after the 2000 Florida Presidential election when the new computer ballot system in some of the counties did not leave any paper trail. This did not allow a manual hand recount when the need arose. No computer system is foolproof. Computer systems can have errors or a polling place may lose power. If there is no paper trail there is no way to check and verify a count.

Editorials: Say no to e-voting: defending the pencils of democracy | Crikey

Another election is winding up, so it’s time for the compulsory round of people complaining that the system is flawed and that technology would magically fix some of the problems. Quite a few are troubled by the pencils, including Clive Palmer, who listed pencils as part of his comprehensive spray against Australia’s “corrupt system”. He told AAP:

“There’s absolutely no way I will win based [on] voting irregularities and the security of the ballots. We think it’s a corrupt system. Until that’s sorted out Abbott won’t be getting any legislation through the Senate with our support.”

But the Australian Electoral Commission has good reasons for using pencils.

“The AEC has found from experience that pencils are the most reliable implements for marking ballot papers. Pencils are practical because they don’t run out and the polling staff check and sharpen pencils as necessary throughout election day. Pencils can be stored between elections, and they work better in tropical areas.”

Besides, if someone intent on defrauding the election broke into the room where the ballots were stored overnight, do you think the best mode of attack would be to erase votes one by one, in a way that couldn’t be detected?

Norway: Vote early, vote often: Inside Norway’s pioneering open source e-voting trials | ZDNet

With Norway holding parliamentary elections this week, the country has taken the opportunity to hold its second e-voting pilot. The pilot follows an earlier trial which took place during the local government elections in 2011. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, the ministry responsible for running elections in Norway, the e-voting participation increased significantly compared to 2011. The trial was carried out in 12 municipalities, chosen for geographical and demographical diversity, which play home to 250,000 of Norway’s 3.6 million voters. … Even though the e-voting system with security front and centre, it still has attracted some criticism from security professionals. The first and most discussed issue were concerns raised over the encryption used in the pilot. The encryption software on the voters’ computers was thought to not have a good enough random number seed for the algorithm and, according to the security company Computas which was engaged by the government to control the system, the seed value was “very predictable”.

Norway: OSCE monitors Norway parliamentary elections | The Foreigner

2013 is the second General Election year this will be done. Their presence is by official invitation from the Government of Norway. It is also based on the findings and conclusions of a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM), conducted between 4 to 6 June. The OSCE/ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights)-deployed Election Assessment Mission (EAM) is headed by American Peter Eicher. Other foreign core team members are election analyst Goran Petrov (former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), and Lisa Klein, a legal and campaign finance analyst from the UK. Sweden’s David Bismark, a new voting technologies analyist, and Yuri Ozerov (procurement and contracting officer, Russia), make up the final two foreign NAM team members. In particular, the election observers will investigate aspects related to the Internet voting pilot project.

New Zealand: Online voting to be trialled in 2016 local elections | NZ Herald News

Online voting is set to be trialled at the 2016 local elections in a bid to boost turnouts. Porirua and Manawatu are likely to be the first areas where people can cast votes electronically, Local Government Minister Chris Tremain said today. The trial would be made possible by the passing of the Electoral Amendment Bill, introduced last week. That would allow voters to enrol online using the government’s RealMe online identity verification service. … Mr Tremain said robust regulations needed to be in place so voters had trust and confidence in the system.

New Zealand: Online system can’t win any votes | Brian Rudman/NZ Herald News

Talk about admitting defeat before the race is over. Instead of trying to inspire voters to get out and do their democratic duty in a few weeks, Local Government Minister Chris Tremain has as good as conceded turn-out is going to be poor. This week, he’s announced a trial of online voting in the 2016 local authority elections as a way “to encourage people to become involved in the democratic process.” Voting via the internet, he says, “will be more convenient and appeal to young voters. It will also make it easier for people with disabilities to vote”. Local Government New Zealand president Lawrence Yule echoed these wishful hopes. But overseas trials don’t appear to back their optimism. In a 2009 poll for the Honolulu Neighbourhood Board, for example, there was an 83 per cent drop in voter participation when Oahu voters had to vote by telephone or internet, rather than cast a paper ballot. But even if internet voting was served up as another option, alongside postal and polling booth voting, and did prove to be a hit with the young, there’s no evidence to suggest your e-vote will be safe and secure as it wings its way from your laptop to Election Central, or that when it arrives, it won’t be prey to malware, or direct external interference.

Editorials: Colorado Secretray of State Gessler repeals controversial email/internet voting rules | Marilyn Marks/Colorado Statesman

On Thursday, Secretary of State Scott Gessler repealed the controversial email/internet voting rules that had been promulgated for the two recall elections for use by absentee voters. The rules were the subject of much controversy and were challenged in the Libertarian Party’s lawsuit concerning a variety of recall election procedures. While the Denver District Court found some of the recall rules in violation of statutes, Judge McGahey seemed willing to allow the use of email ballots, “for this election.” He ordered that absentee ballots must be made available to everyone without requiring an “excuse.” That ruling was anticipated, as Colorado has been a “no-excuse” state for many years. The use of email rather than mail or hand delivery for absentee ballots would proliferate, and the Secretary quickly decided that this was unworkable and repealed the rule. We applaud his quick decision to provide more security to the recall election processes. The Libertarians (and Citizen Center) had fought the introduction of email ballots for any use other than military overseas with no safer option (that is current law), and true medical emergencies. The original SOS rules issued August 16 allowed email transmission and return of all absentee ballots. After considerable public input, revised rules were issued to decrease the return of ballots by email, but still allow the email delivery of ballots to voters to be returned by U.S. Mail.

New Zealand: Can we trust voting online? | ZDNet

Thankfully, the New Zealand government appears not to be pressing ahead with online voting — at least, for now. An Electoral Amendment Bill was released yesterday, which improves online registration through its RealMe identification service, but nothing appears to have been said about actual online voting itself. Voting online was always seen as one of those inevitable things as part of an e-transition, as it were, to an online world; something that we all saw as “a good thing”. But recent events have made me turn against such “progress”. Having free and fair elections are fundamental to the democratic process, but can we trust such e-ballots?

Canada: Cost, security dampen online voting enthusiasm in London | Metro

Leamington residents will be able to cast ballots in their next municipal election by doing nothing more than tapping a mouse from the comfort of their own home. But Londoners may have to wait a while before they get that luxury. Leamington’s decision to allow online voting was based on a number of factors, officials say, not the least of which was the opportunity to reverse a trend in many municipalities of voter apathy. London city clerk Cathy Saunders wouldn’t rule out a similar move locally for the 2014 election, but said there are many questions that have to be answered before a go-ahead could be given. “We still remain somewhat concerned with the online voting,” she said. “We still have some security concerns.”

National: I Flirt and Tweet. Follow Me at #Socialbot. | New York Times

From the earliest days of the Internet, robotic programs, or bots, have been trying to pass themselves off as human. Chatbots greet users when they enter an online chat room, for example, or kick them out when they get obnoxious. More insidiously, spambots indiscriminately churn out e-mails advertising miracle stocks and unattended bank accounts in Nigeria. Bimbots deploy photos of gorgeous women to hawk work-from-home job ploys and illegal pharmaceuticals. Now come socialbots. These automated charlatans are programmed to tweet and retweet. They have quirks, life histories and the gift of gab. Many of them have built-in databases of current events, so they can piece together phrases that seem relevant to their target audience. They have sleep-wake cycles so their fakery is more convincing, making them less prone to repetitive patterns that flag them as mere programs. Some have even been souped up by so-called persona management software, which makes them seem more real by adding matching Facebook, Reddit or Foursquare accounts, giving them an online footprint over time as they amass friends and like-minded followers. Researchers say this new breed of bots is being designed not just with greater sophistication but also with grander goals: to sway elections, to influence the stock market, to attack governments, even to flirt with people and one another.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Recommendations to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration

On Election Day, long lines were produced in many cases due to voting systems that malfunctioned in multiple locations across the country. As stated in a joint letter we signed sent to President Obama last November, “While insufficient voting equipment was not the only cause for long wait times, it no doubt contributed to the problems we saw on Election Day. The need to improve our voting systems is urgent. Much of the voting equipment in use today is nearing the end of its life cycle, making equipment attrition and obsolescence a serious and growing threat.”[1. http://www.calvoter.org/issues/votingtech/pub/Election_verification_letter_to_Obama_11-20-]

In our “Counting Votes 2012: A State By State Look At Election Preparedness” report[2. http://countingvotes.org], about the 50 states’ preparedness for this major election cycle, we identified key areas of concern. We predicted many states could have problems due to:

• aging voting systems,
• dependence on machine interface for voting for the majority of voters, and
• thoroughness of policies and regulations for emergency back-up provisions in case polling place problems occur and lines start to form.

There were few surprises. As one of our technology expert recruits for the OurVoteLive (OVL) Election Protection hotline indicated:

What’s most interesting is that if you divide things into “easy to solve” and “hard to solve”, the “easy to solve” ones tend to be in places using optical scan [ballots], and the “hard to solve” in places using machines [DREs].

California: Election Hack: Stealing Votes the Cyber Way | FBI

A 22-year-old candidate for student council president at California State University San Marcos hoped to guarantee victory by rigging the election through cyber fraud, but he ended up winning a year in prison instead. Matthew Weaver used small electronic devices called keyloggers to steal the passwords and identities of nearly 750 fellow students. Then he cast votes for himself—and some of his friends on the ballot—using the stolen names. He was caught during the final hour of the election in March 2012 when network administrators noticed unusual voting activity associated with a single computer on campus. A Cal State police officer sent to investigate found Weaver working at that machine. He had cast more than 600 votes for himself using the stolen identities. “Some people wanted to paint this as a college prank gone bad, but he took the identities of almost 750 people, and that’s a serious thing,” said Special Agent Charles Chabalko, who worked the investigation out of our San Diego Division after being contacted by Cal State authorities. “He had access to these students’ e-mails, financial information, and their social networks. He had access to everything.”

Canada: Online voting: the ultimate hackers’ challenge | Toronto Star

“Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” So goes the famous quote. Without very careful study, you might get the wish of Internet voting — and live to regret it. Your birth certificate and passport are “foundation” documents. You have to show up to get them. You have to show up to get married, and you should have to show up to cast a ballot, both “foundation” activities. Internet voting advocates assume away the large risks — and certainty of abuse — of online voting, not to mention the difficulty and expense of developing the system. There is no audit trail in an online vote. Physical ballot boxes are sealed in the presence of human witnesses. The individual ballots can be recounted to determine by sight the voter’s intention. The sheer number of human beings physically watching voters makes the integrity of the ballot box difficult to breach, though people try to cheat in every election. Online voting would be used just once every four years. There is no opportunity to properly debug the system when it goes awry on election day, or between elections, or stress-test the system to determine if it stands up to the server traffic. Enersource’s web servers went down during the July rain storm power outage in the GTA. People got their information from Facebook and Twitter. Hackers thrive in the years of dark time between scheduled elections. Proponents of online voting point to the ubiquitous use of online banking and other daily Internet transactions. The critical difference is that those other systems are used, debugged, watched and stress-tested each and every day by scores of experts who know them inside out. Gaining access to the software’s root directory enables a hacker to control the system on election day, and corrupt the outcome. By the time voters see the damage, it is too late.

Canada: Internet voting has its pitfalls | Montreal Gazette

Elections Canada said this week that it hopes to test Internet voting in byelections after the 2015 general federal election. If the tests are successful, the agency could adopt this form of voting in all federal elections. Elections Canada is on a perilous track. The use of computers in democracy’s most important exercise, voting, is subject to two serious dangers: inadvertent glitches and deliberate tampering. Montrealers know all about the glitches. So do voters in most of the 139 other cities and towns across Quebec that also used electronic equipment in their 2005 municipal elections (either for counting votes, as did Montreal and Longueuil, or for both voting and counting, as did Quebec City). In Montreal’s case, 45,000 ballots were counted twice (only later corrected), and election results were hours late. Snafus were also rife elsewhere. Quebec’s elections agency wisely responded to the fiasco by suspending use of such technology until it could be shown to be foolproof. Logically, this should mean suspension in perpetuity: Computers will never be risk-free.

Estonia: Volunteers to Put Internet Voting Software to the Test | ERR

A group of IT experts says it intends to carry out a test attack on Estonia’s e-voting software following the release of the source code two weeks ago. Although it was possible to test the system before the code was made public, only administrators had access to the results, reported Õhtuleht. The group of volunteers, led by security expert Renee Trisberg, says it hopes to finish testing the voluminous and complex system one month ahead of Estonia’s next local elections, on October 20 (electronic voting begins 10 days earlier). Since the general framework of the e-voting system has been public for years, Trisberg said, he believes that it is generally secure and that his team can only expect to find minor errors. “I have been a supporter of the e-elections. One must do his part to ensure that nothing happens, even just a simple mistake. Years of finger-pointing will follow if a malfunction were to occur,“ Trisberg said.

Verified Voting in the News: California College Vote Hack | David Jefferson/Election Law Blog

I just read Doug Chapin’s article on the vote rigging at Cal State San Marcos, and I would add several observations.  Had this been a public election conducted via Internet voting, it would have been much more difficult to identify any problem or to capture the perpetrator, Mr. Weaver. Mr. Weaver was captured because he was voting from school-owned computers. This was networked voting but not really Internet voting. The IT staff was able to notice “unusual activity” on those computers, and via remote access they were able to “watch the user cast vote after vote”. But in a public online election people would vote from their own private PCs, and through the Internet, not on a network controlled by the IT staff of election officials. There will likely be no “unusual activity” to notice in real time, and no possibility of “remote access” to allow them to monitor activity on a voter’s computer.  Note also that university IT staff were able to monitor him while he was voting, showing that they were able to completely violate voting privacy, something we cannot tolerate in a public election.

Verified Voting Blog: The California College Vote Hack

I just read Doug Chapin’s article on the vote rigging at Cal State San Marcos, and I would add several observations. Had this been a public election conducted via Internet voting, it would have been much more difficult to identify any problem or to capture the perpetrator, Matthew Weaver. Mr. Weaver was captured because he was voting from school-owned computers. This was networked voting but not really Internet voting. The IT staff was able to notice “unusual activity” on those computers, and via remote access they were able to “watch the user cast vote after vote”. But in a public online election people would vote from their own private PCs, and through the Internet, not on a network controlled by the IT staff of election officials. There will likely be no “unusual activity” to notice in real time, and no possibility of “remote access” to allow them to monitor activity on a voter’s computer.  Note also that university IT staff were able to monitor him while he was voting, showing that they were able to completely violate voting privacy, something we cannot tolerate in a public election.

In the Cal State San Marcos election votes apparently had to be cast from computers on the university’s own network, and not from just anywhere on the Internet. I infer this because it makes good security sense, and because I cannot think of any other reason Mr. Weaver would cast his phony votes from a university computer rather than from an anonymous place like a public library. If this is correct, it is a huge security advantage not possible in public elections, where the perpetrator could be anywhere in the world. Even if public officials somehow did notice an unusual voting pattern that made them suspicious after the fact that phony votes were cast, there would be no evidence to indicate who it was, and no police on the spot to pick him up red handed.

California: Student gets prison for rigged election | UTSanDiego.com

A former Cal State San Marcos student who rigged a campus election by stealing nearly 750 student passwords to cast votes for himself and friends was sentenced Monday in federal court to a year in prison. It was Matthew Weaver’s decision to try to cover up the largest student identity theft in the university’s 24-year history that seemed to irritate the judge the most. “That’s the phenomenal misjudgment I can’t get around,” said Judge Larry Burns, who rejected Weaver’s request for probation. Burns said the election rigging was a serious offense but “kind of juvenile.” Developing a scheme to deflect blame after he had been caught made it worse. “He’s on fire for this crime, and then he pours gasoline on it to try to cover it up,” the judge said.

Verified Voting in the News: Cybersecurity panel hears about security risks of internet voting | WVTF

A special cybersecurity panel of the Joint Commission on Technology and Science has voted to move forward with crafting state legislation to enable many deployed military voters to cast their absentee ballots on-line.  The panel decided that the pilot program should focus on active-duty military personnel based outside of the continental U.S.–instead of also including spouses and other employees. As proposed, the bill would require signing and scanning of each ballot, a witness, and use of a military smart-ID card that’s encrypted. Local officials would compare the ballots received with matching absentee voting applications and investigate any irregularities. But SRI International’s Jeremy Epstein warned of potential problems, including viruses.

Estonia: Architect: E-Election Code Should Not Be a Free-for-All | ERR

Tarvi Martens, a creator of Estonia’s e-election system, countered recent criticism of an open-source license, saying the continued development of the Internet voting software code must be conducted in a controlled and coordinated environment. Last week, the National Electoral Committee, which Martens heads, publicly released the source code of Estonia’s e-voting software. However, the binding Creative Commons license that accompanied the code was the topic of heated debate among IT specialists who disagreed with the restrictions on amending the code. Yet Martens said allowing derivative code and free sharing of it was not the goal of publishing the details of the e-election system.

Estonia: E-Voting Source Code Made Public | ERR

The Electronic Voting Committee yesterday revealed the source code of its server software, opening up technical analysis of the e-elections system to the public. “This is the next step toward a transparent system. The idea, which was the result of joint discussion between numerous Estonian IT experts and the Electronic Voting Committee, was implemented today. We welcome the fact that experts representing civil society want to contribute to the development and security of the e-elections,” said committee chairman Tarvi Martens. Although the source code was accessible before, it required the requester to sign a confidentiality contract. Estonia’s e-voting system has been used for five elections – including general, local and European Parliament elections – since it was introduced in 2005. In the 2011 general elections, 24.3 percent of the votes cast were done so by e-vote, according to the National Electoral Committee. A new feature at the coming October local government elections is an Android-based electronic receipt of sorts that allows a voter to verify if their e-ballot went through properly.

Estonia: E-voting system source code releases in push for transparency, security | Gigaom

For six years, Estonians haven’t had to set foot in a polling place or wait in line to cast their votes for President — instead, they can do it online. And on Thursday, the country’s Electronic Voting Committee released the entire source code of its voting server software on open-source platform GitHub — a move that not only gives Estonians a glimpse into the workings of their e-voting system, but that also gives them a chance to help toughen it up from a security perspective. The Estonian e-voting process is based on the country’s identity card, which is mandatory and issued when a citizen is 15 years old. The card has a built-in electronic authentication system that allows secure voting online from any computer, and each citizen is allowed to submit and change their vote until Election Day. At the last Parliamentary Election in 2011, one in four people chose to cast their ballot via e-vote. While there isn’t enough data to conclude whether e-voting has raised voter turnout overall in the country, the country’s electoral committee views the process as successful.

Estonia: E-voting source code publishes on GitHub | Ars Technica

Estonia, which created the world’s first nationwide Internet-based voting system, has finally released its source code to the public in an attempt to assuage a longstanding concern by critics. “This is the next step toward a transparent system,” said Tarvi Martens, chairman of Estonia’s Electronic Voting Committee, in an interview Friday with ERR, Estonia’s national broadcaster. “The idea, which was the result of joint discussion between numerous Estonian IT experts and the Electronic Voting Committee, was implemented today. We welcome the fact that experts representing civil society want to contribute to the development and security of the e-elections.” Martens and his colleagues have now put the entire source code on GitHub—previously it was only made available after signing a confidentiality agreement.

Australia: Compulsory voting to remain in Queensland as donation cap lifted | The Australian

Compulsory voting will remain in place in Queensland but political parties will have to declare donations of $12,400 or more under reforms announced by the Newman Government today. Online voting could also be trialled in the 2015 campaign for voters with a disability. Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said he envisioned all voters could vote electronically within six years. “Subject to appropriate security arrangements and successful trials, computers could replace paper voting cards at polling booths and Queenslanders could even one day vote from the comfort of their own homes over the Internet,” Mr Bleijie said. “The immediate priority is providing electronically assisted voting for people with disabilities.” Other reforms will include lifting the caps on political donations and expenditure which were imposed by the former government and requiring proof of identity from voters on polling day.

Canada: Elections Ontario says it’s time for a pilot project on online voting | Toronto Star

The province should test online voting with a pilot project during a byelection down the road, Elections Ontario recommends.
In a two-part, 271-page report to the legislature tabled Monday, Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa said it’s time to embrace technological changes in order to encourage more people to vote. … But there are security and technological challenges to online or telephone voting, he concluded after looking at experiences in Australia, Estonia, the U.S., the United Kingdom and various Canadian municipalities. These include “identifying the need to overcome capacity challenges by building and supporting the infrastructure required to manage a system for the entire province” and understanding that there will be “significant costs associated with pilots and integrating network voting into a general election (more than $2 million per use of the system).”

Switzerland: Genevans abroad given 2 electronic voting dates | GenevaLunch

The cantonal council in Geneva is offering its residents abroad the possibility of voting electronically 6 October and 10 November, only the second time they’ve been given the option to vote electronically. The previous voting sessions in October 2012 were majority votes, but the 6 October will be the first proportional vote done this way. Cantonal councilors underscored their decision by saluting the 14 June decision by the Federal Council to adopt a report on electronic voting that lays out clear guidelines for the cantons. Electronic voting during its first six year test phase was financed by the federal government, but starting this year the cantons are responsible for covering the costs, with some help from Bern until 2014.

Editorials: Why permanent residents should get the vote in Toronto | Metro

When activists started tossing around the idea of giving permanent residents in Toronto the right to vote in municipal elections, I came to the issue as a skeptic. Citizenship as a natural prerequisite to voting rights is one of those things that just seems intuitive. But by the time Toronto City Council got around to approving a formal request to the provincial government to extend the municipal vote to non-citizens, three things had changed my mind. The first was the work of writer and activist Desmond Cole, who selflessly championed the issue all the way up to last week’s council vote. His relentless drive and super convincing arguments in favour of the idea made him into a kind of city hall rock star, proof that all you need to affect change at city hall is an advocate who isn’t prepared to back down.

Canada: Toronto Council votes to explore ranked balloting, voting for permanent residents | Globalnews.ca

Toronto’s city council voted to explore ranked balloting and let permanent residents vote during a council debate Tuesday. The votes were part of a larger motion on electoral reform that included suggestions to establish weekend elections and internet voting. Changes to municipal elections would require legislative changes by the Ontario government. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing issued a short statement Tuesday evening saying the Ontario government “will take the time to give careful consideration” to the proposal and appreciates the city’s “efforts to look at ways to increase voter engagement.”