Elections P.E.I. not ready to recommend online voting in next election

P.E.I.'s chief electoral officer is reserving judgment on whether online voting could be used in a provincial election until he completes his full report on the province's electoral reform plebiscite.

Gary McLeod says 81 per cent of those who voted in the plebiscite did so online. A further 9 per cent voted over the phone, with 10 per cent opting to vote in person using a traditional paper ballot.

This was the first time in Canada a province-wide vote was conducted using internet and telephone voting as options. As well, Elections P.E.I. offered traditional in-person voting for a two-day period in the midst of ten days of electronic voting.

"The online voting worked very well it was very convenient," McLeod said. "[But] because there are risks associated with it, I want to make sure we continue with keeping the integrity of the voting process high. And whether we can do that with internet voting, I'm not sure yet."

In order to use online voting in a provincial election, McLeod said the risk would have to be mitigated "in every aspect."

Cyberattack affects preparations for vote

On Oct. 21, just a week before the plebiscite began, preparations were temporarily hampered by a major cyber attack in the US. The attack wasn't directed against the vote itself but against a company, Dyn, that maintains domain name servers. Those servers direct internet traffic to web sites for companies like Netflix and Twitter.

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As a result of the attack, staff at Elections P.E.I. were unable to access their voter registry for about three hours.

Before the vote began, backup domain servers were set up to provide a level of protection against any attack that occurred while voting was underway. None did.

One case of possible voter fraud

McLeod said one case of possible voter fraud has been referred to the RCMP.

"Someone has said that they did not vote, and our records are indicating that they have. So the police have been advised," McLeod said.

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He said the voter in question had received their personal identification number in the mail in order to be able to vote online, "but somebody may have voted for them without their knowledge."

Understanding options a challenge

In response to questions about voter turnout of 36 per cent, McLeod said, with ten days of voting and three ways to cast a ballot, "we probably gave them accessibility as much as we ever have in the past. People have to take the option to be able to vote when they can."

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He said he couldn't say why more Islanders didn't vote, but said understanding all the options was a challenge for some voters, especially the more than 9,000 who waited until the last day to cast their ballots.

"We had a lot of people calling us on Monday trying to determine how the systems work. It was very challenging for people to be able to understand that at the last minute."

Vote will be over budget

McLeod said the plebiscite cost more than the $450,000 initially provided in the provincial budget, but he couldn't say how much. He said directions for Elections P.E.I. to run the public education campaign and to set up in-person polling stations were made after the budget was set.

Without those added expenses, he said running an online vote would be less expensive than running a traditional paper ballot election.

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