History & Methods of E-Voting

Currently, Elections Canada and all provinces still use traditional paper ballots, which are hand-counted by poll clerks, though some smaller jurisdictions in Canada have begun to explore various alternative means of casting and counting votes. Other countries have been much more innovative.

Electronic Voting Machines

Machines have been counting votes in various parts of the world since the 1960s, first by way of punch card ballots and mechanical lever machines, and more recently using optical scan voting machines, similar to answer sheets used in standardized testing, whereby voters fill in a circle on the ballot and a machine counts the selections based on the darkened areas of the page.

Even more recently, partly in response to the infamous “hanging/dimpled/pregnant chads”¹ of the 2000 US Presidential election, voters cast their vote on an “electronic input device” (for example, a touch screen). There are two distinct possibilities as to what can happen once a vote is cast electronically. Some systems will produce a paper confirmation. Others, known as direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting systems, record the votes and store the ballot images in memory. The machine tabulates its own results and produces a number or transfers its information to a central location where the votes from a number of machines are tabulated together.²

Online Voting

The advent of the Internet has had huge implications for politics and elections. Candidates recruit people to their campaign and collect donations online. Debates are broadcast on YouTube, where candidates and elected politicians post videos in an attempt to reach out to young voters. Facebook users can broadcast their political views to friends by linking to those politicians whom they support, should those politicians be savvy enough to have a Facebook account (currently, Stéphane Dion has 10,496 supporters, while PM Harper has 8,371). Political parties produce podcasts, and Parliamentary proceedings can be viewed live online at cpac.ca.

In the face of all this and the Internet’s ability to allow voters to participate easily from wherever they are in the world, it is inevitable that the possibilities of online voting would be explored. Online voting is currently being rolled out in a number of Canadian municipalities, including Markham and Peterborough, and is very popular among private organizations, such as corporations and university student unions and societies, including the Dalhousie Student Union and Dalhousie Law Students Society.

The focus of this analysis will be on the two most recent developments, electronic voting machines (both paper-based and DRE) and online voting. [The Elections Canada Report also addresses telephone voting, but this method is currently far overshadowed by machines and the Internet.]

¹ Wikipedia. "Chad (paper)". and CNN.com. "Egad! What's the 'chad' blocking the path to the White House?" 12 November 2000.
² Tokaji, supra at pp. 11-12.