Online Voting in Canada

[Big Guy]

If people can't be bothered to take a half hour to get to a poll once every 4 years, what does that say about democracy?

But the process of voting is not just the filling of the ballot. Why should a person who has no idea of the issues or cares about politics take the time to find a polling station and stand in line to vote? The problem is that people do not get involved in politics - for a variety of good and bad reasons. To make an informed choice takes a lot of time, reading specific sections of news media and not changing the channel or fast forwarding when politics hit the news. I believe that the real question is how do you get people interested in politics and understand that they can make a difference in their own lives? How do you make them feel that their vote counts - be it a check mark on a ballot or a key stroke on the computer?

[eyeball]

You get politicians to stop lying that's how.

[Michael Hardner]

Supposedly Election Ontario did a study on online voting.

Try and find it. I googled for ten minutes and could only find other sites referring to it. There is your government technological prowess.

[eyeball]

Supposedly Election Ontario did a study on online voting.

Try and find it. I googled for ten minutes and could only find other sites referring to it. There is your government technological prowess.

Or their reluctance to share revealing information that might lead to action.

[Michael Hardner]

Or their reluctance to share revealing information that might lead to action.

Yes. Even though I oppose online voting, this is another example of why more online engagement is needed. I would, however, prioritize things like engagement and reporting.

"It's More than Talk" was completed by Don Lenihan, Provincial Advisor on Public Engagement for the province of New Brunswick in 2008 (!) and it gives a glimpse of what true online engagement with publics could look like:

https://www.ppforum.ca/sites/default/files/final_report_public_engagement_eng.pdf

[waldo]

Supposedly Election Ontario did a study on online voting.

Try and find it. I googled for ten minutes and could only find other sites referring to it. There is your government technological prowess.

ahem! "It's a poor workman that blames his tools"!

Alternative Voting Technologies Report - Ontario Chief Electoral Officer’s Submission to the Legislative Assembly (Jun,2013)

[Michael Hardner]

ahem! "It's a poor workman that blames his tools"!

Well done ! Both on the quote, and finding the doc. For the record, I Googled with the advanced tag "Site: ontario.ca" or whatever the elections ontario site is. And also just general googles.

Good on ya.

[Michael Hardner]

Ok.... the report doesn't seem to mention anything about the fact that convenience will encourage Pac Man style voting. No surprise, I guess, as it's not like Marshall McLuhan ever lived in Ontario or anything...

So, they missed the big picture, but I'm comforted in that Don Lenihan is part of the Ontario Government's Open Government Engagement Team.

http://www.ontario.ca/government/open-government-expert-team

I knew that Don was involved, but missed the fact that the report came out. It looks pretty good, but I don't have time to look at it in depth now. I'll review later.

If Ontario moves forward with true collaboration and transparency with OG, then I'm fine with online voting.

[eyeball]

Judging by the pictures of the meetings in your link the OG thing isn't exactly drawing big crowds of publics. I've seen several dozen times as many people in one small fishing village come out to a meeting.

Just how many/few people does it take to make a public anyway?

[Michael Hardner]

Judging by the pictures of the meetings in your link the OG thing isn't exactly drawing big crowds of publics. I've seen several dozen times as many people in one small fishing village come out to a meeting.

Just how many/few people does it take to make a public anyway?

That's a good question. Well.. what can I say. I myself missed the Toronto meeting, which I am kicking myself for.

[ReeferMadness]

But the process of voting is not just the filling of the ballot. Why should a person who has no idea of the issues or cares about politics take the time to find a polling station and stand in line to vote? The problem is that people do not get involved in politics - for a variety of good and bad reasons. To make an informed choice takes a lot of time, reading specific sections of news media and not changing the channel or fast forwarding when politics hit the news. I believe that the real question is how do you get people interested in politics and understand that they can make a difference in their own lives? How do you make them feel that their vote counts - be it a check mark on a ballot or a key stroke on the computer?

Proportional representation would be a good start. Most of the time, I don't feel like the person who is supposed to represent me in the HoC represents my views at all.

[Michael Hardner]

Most of the time, I don't feel like the person who is supposed to represent me in the HoC represents my views at all.

I think that online participation and consultation would address this far better than PR.

[eyeball]

But the process of voting is not just the filling of the ballot. Why should a person who has no idea of the issues or cares about politics take the time to find a polling station and stand in line to vote? The problem is that people do not get involved in politics - for a variety of good and bad reasons. To make an informed choice takes a lot of time, reading specific sections of news media and not changing the channel or fast forwarding when politics hit the news. I believe that the real question is how do you get people interested in politics and understand that they can make a difference in their own lives? How do you make them feel that their vote counts - be it a check mark on a ballot or a key stroke on the computer?

I don't know how and nor do I really care. But more to the point, why should the existence of people who don't care become the basis for denying people who do the means to vote regularly on a range of issues? And why the line-ups? There's no line-ups online.

[Michael Hardner]

It just occurred to me that online voting and online engagement can and should go hand-in-hand.

If people want to participate online, let's design that as a citizen experience separate from the ballot process. It certainly should and would engage people who feel disaffected and outside the system, if done properly.

[GostHacked]

Well, if they do get to this point, let's hope they have a top notch IT team to test the security features and that the system performs up to the highest standards.

You get a hacker to test your security, not your IT guys. That may make the servers secure, but it does not prevent the exploits from happening on the pc the person is using to vote with. And let's say I have a compromised PC, someone else could use that to manipulate the data. So no the risks for online voting are to high if you go with an internet based voting system. It could be gamed more than paper ballots.

We saw in the USA with the Deibold voting machines that were easily hacked and manipulated to give incorrect results. So keep the paper ballots.

With online voting will come an online ID. And your notion of anonymity online is gone. Beware of this carrot they dangle in front of you.

[GostHacked]

in this most specific of cases; i.e., the 'heartbleed bug' you're now fixated on... on the broadest of levels, how would e-voting software that doesn't use open source SSL, or on the more particular level, how would e-voting software that encrpyts votes starting at the origination client device point be susceptible? You clearly don't know any of the technical facets; you've simply taken a naive position that wildly assumes any hack of anything/anywhere automatically translates into compromised e-voting system design/architecture/software/etc.. What's that? You need assurances to gain trust? Good on ya... I'll look forward to you championing the cause to have Harper Conservatives repeal the provision within their "Fair Elections Act" that currently intends to prevent/block Elections Canada from small-scale testing/trialing of e-voting.

I don't think you have a grip on it either here. You could have a virus or some exploit on your home computer that would negate any encryption the voting software would do. If I have direct access to your system without you knowing about it, how secure do you think you are?

And if the system is connected to the Ineternet (which would be the case in online voting) it is susceptible to cyber attacks. You also have to consider foreign governments will be interested in manipulating that information as well. So it's not just hackers, and viruses, you have state run cyber attacks from foreign governments.

All it takes is one infected of compromised PC to negate any security that is in place.

[ReeferMadness]

I think that online participation and consultation would address this far better than PR.

I think you don't get my point.

I will never feel represented by one of Harper's battle clones no matter how much consultation occurs.