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| What If They Hold A Vote And No One Shows Up? |
November 10, 2003 |
By Poonam Khanna
Voters aren’t voting. And that’s a problem for a country that prides itself on its democratic institutions.
Take the Town of Markham, Ont. A typical municipal election nets a turnout of only about 30 per cent. But for its recent municipal election, Markham went with a new approach: it offered voters the chance to cast their ballots online in the hope that increased convenience would lead to increased turnout. The town allowed citizens to vote online in the advanced polling stage of its election, from Nov. 3 to 7. The election was still to take place at press time.
Markham was the first municipality in Canada to use Internet voting. “We see this as a way of trying to increase the number of people involved in municipal elections. I think if we get it up to 40 per cent, we’ll be doing well,” said Markham’s mayor Donald Cousens.
But not everybody is all that enthusiastic about the prospect of online elections. “I personally think it’s a bad idea,” said Robert MacDermid, a professor of political science at York University in Toronto.
MacDermid speaks from an historical perspective. In-person secret ballot voting was adopted in the late 19th century in various jurisdictions across Canada to preclude the sale of votes. Prior to that, people would go up to the poll and state aloud who they were voting for. Candidates buying votes would be able to confirm that people delivered on their sale by stationing someone at the poll.
Now, Internet voting raises that spectre once again for MacDermid, as it would be possible for people to sell their PIN codes and let someone else cast a ballot for them.
“That, to my mind, is the first and most serious problem—it opens up the possibility of the sale of votes,” MacDermid said.
Markham is aware of this possibility, but Cousens said he’s not worried about it. There are already some rural municipalities that use telephone voting, and cheating has not been a factor in those elections.
“If there is (cheating) it’s going to be miniscule. Certainly, the responsibility is on the people who receive their codes to get onto the system to use it themselves.”
In any case, cheating has always been a possibility, said Frank Edwards, manager of administration and assistant returning officer for the Town of Markham’s clerk office. Registered voters coming to polling stations only need to show their voter card and no additional ID. There’s nothing to stop them from giving their card to someone else, he said.
“The success of Internet voting depends on the integrity of the elector,” he said. “We can’t control the elector.”
THE TECH CHALLENGES
While biometrics often rides in to save the day whenever personal authentication is in question, the technology is probably not suited to elections because votes must be anonymous.
“People might be worried about the anonymity of their vote, so you’d have to make sure the people who tabulated the vote couldn’t track back who you voted for. It’s an issue we’re going to have to face,” said University of Calgary computer science professor Thomas Keenan.
The other major concern as far as security goes, of course, is the threat of hactivisim—activists who make political or social statements by hacking into computer systems.
“People coming in and subverting the system by hacking in—there’s at least a residual concern about that,” said Paul Nesbitt-Larking, an associate professor of political science at Huron University College at the University of Western Ontario.
There are also concerns about potential technical difficulties, which is probably why Internet voting is only being used during advanced polling and not on the actual day of the election, said York University’s MacDermid. “I suspect Markham is worried about that happening, that’s why they’re restricting it.”
VOTER APATHY
Markham’s online voting system is provided by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb, which also helped the United Kingdom deliver multi-channel voting in recent elections.
People could vote over the phone, through the mail or online, and voter turnout increased by 20 per cent, said John Groh, senior vice-president of ES&S.
But MacDermid believes Internet voting doesn’t address the right issues when it comes to electoral apathy. “It’s focusing on something that’s a gimmick, as opposed to thinking about more important and fundamental ways to change democracy at the local level to improve turnout.”
More important than how ballots are cast, he said, is voter confusion over political platforms, the fact municipal campaigns are not well run and generate poor media coverage of issues.
There are places where voting day is a holiday, and countries where voting is done over a weekend. In Australia voting is compulsory, and turnout there hovers around 95 per cent. Those who don’t vote must appear before a justice of the peace and either provide a good excuse, such as being in the hospital, or pay a fine for their laziness.
MacDermid thinks this is a good idea. “If no one voted, what would happen, would we still have democracy?”
He also believes it’s important to vote in person at a poll to fulfill your democratic responsibility. “There’s some element of ceremony to it. I don’t think we should downplay that.”
In addition, with Internet voting, people don’t get a chance to make a protest vote by spoiling their ballot.
Nesbitt-Larking also has concerns. “There’s the question of what one might call push-button populist democracy.
“The more privatized and isolated the act of voting becomes, the greater is the danger of a kind of knee-jerk democracy,” in which people make quick decisions without participating in dialogue within the community.
But the Town of Markham hopes to answer many of those questions with its November election.
Web voting
ES&S http://www.essvote.com
Town of Markham http://www.city.markham.on.ca
University of Calgary http://www.ucalgary.ca
University of Western Ontario http://www.uwo.ca
York University http://www.yorku.ca
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