In the city election and other elections expected soon, most of us who vote will go on election day to a polling station. At that station we will be verified as a voter and given a piece of paper on which we check our candidate preference(s). An official will take our vote and place it in a box for counting after the polls close. Counting will proceed by methods known for centuries.
Machine processing and tabulating is happening in some jurisdictions (mainly American). Americans make many more decisions on their "vote" documents than Canadians.
We will wonder why isn't technology that most of us use daily being put to use and improving our democracy.
In the Internet Age where a majority of homes have computer/communications access the obvious question is why not make every home a polling station and for those who lack this set up polling stations with internet voting.
Benefits could be greater voter turnout, faster reporting of results and the ability to handle referendum type questions more readily and frequently and maybe, lower the cost of election voting.
You can find out why "the reliance on Internet voting could inadvertently place the validity of the election process at risk." in today's Star ("Geist: Hackers, viruses threaten online voting validity").
Giest explains why those who have tried using the Internet have suspended their actions.
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