Council voted 10-1 Tuesday in favour of having online voting available for residents choosing to cast a ballot at advanced polls in the November municipal election. The move, however, will not eliminate voting stations.
“It’s not to narrow choices, but expand them,” said Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer, who led her party’s charge to experiment with online voting this year.
Historically, Vancouver has used in-person or mail-in voting for general elections, byelections and referendums. Paper ballots are used and read and tabulated by optical scanners in each of the 130-plus voting stations. The city has also provided special arrangements for people in hospitals, care homes and those physically incapable of getting to a polling place.
NPA Coun. Suzanne Anton cast the dissenting vote at council. Anton said she opposes online voting because of risks related to security and the inability to properly track whether the same person in a household voted more than once. The present voting system is straightforward, she added. “You go there, you get this piece of paper, you go to this little booth all by yourself and you hand back your ballot and it’s so well counted and audited and everything matches up,” Anton said. “It’s so secure. When you look at that, you have complete confidence in the system.”
Full Article: Vancouver city council approves Internet voting.