News

Canada weighs merits, risks of online voting

February 2, 2004

TORONTO, Canada -- An Internet company is hailing online voting as the electoral wave of the future, but Elections Canada and a political observer are more skeptical, saying questions about security and fraud still have to be solved.

A report on a pilot project conducted in Markham, Ont., during November's municipal election said online voting was a success, according to Adam Froman, president of Delvinia Interactive. "The advance poll increased by 300 percent," he said in a story on Yahoo News.

Delvinia conducted the experiment in the advance poll only, but Froman believes that will be expanded in the future.

Not everyone is won over by the idea of online voting. Nelson Wiseman, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, is skeptical fraud can be prevented.

"Right now it is difficult to perpetrate fraud, because a person has to show up at a polling station, so they can't be engaged in multiple voting," he said in the article. "But once you open it up to the Internet . . . it's been very messy so far."

A report commissioned in 1998 by Elections Canada to explore voting alternatives also shows trepidation about security.

The report by KPMG Sussex Circle favored telephone technology and interactive kiosks for use in voting instead of the Internet.