FCS-12-191 - Alternate Voting - Internet Voting

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order to maintain public confidence elections should be accessible, transparent, secret, accountable and secure from fraud. Internet voting may not adhere to some of those principles raising the question of whether or not it is important enough to dispense with one or more principles for the sake of convenience and other possible positive outcomes. It is important that decisions with respect to introducing internet voting, take into consideration the need to balance these competing principles. This report will attempt to bring together information from various papers, reports, data and documents on the subject to assist council in making a decision on whether or not, internet voting is an acceptable and appropriate voting method for the City of Kitchener to introduce in 2014. The Internet Voting Experience Internet voting has been trialled over the past decade by several countries and jurisdictions throughout the world. In all cases except one, this voting method has only been offered on a local or jurisdictional level, not on a national level. In addition, except for some Ontario municipalities in 2010, internet voting has been offered as a voting option along with others such as paper ballot, phone voting and mail-in; in other words, internet has not been the sole method of voting. Europe and Australia Several European countries have investigated and piloted internet voting and Estonia and Switzerland appear to have embraced this method having conducted several elections with internet voting as an option. Estonia is the only country to have offered internet voting on a national level. Norway conducted its first pilot in 2011 on a limited municipal level and pending the outcome of an extensive post-election report, there are plans to introduce internet voting on a national level in 2017. Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have used electronic counting equipment and have trialled internet voting but all three have moved away from these voting options based on certain democratic voting principles not being met. Both Germany and the Netherlands have gone so far as to decommission all electronic voting methods citing lack of transparency, accountability and the fact that equal and free voting could not be verified. The United Kingdom also cited transparency and security issues and found that the majority of internet users would have voted using the other available methods raising questions with respect to cost and value. Australia piloted internet voting in 2007 but deferred further trials in 2009 citing cost as the major impediment in offering this voting option. North America The United States have trialled internet voting but only in limited uses such as primaries and overseas/military voters. Security and risks to voting integrity have been cited as concerns and as such, no internet program has been established on a federal level. According to one researcher, a national policy on internet voting is not expected in the near future. Certain individual States have used internet voting again mostly for military and absentee voters however; security remains an issue with some and there is evidence that a few states are moving back to a paper ballot to be counted either manually or by optical-scan machines. In Canada, the Federal and several Provincial governments have commenced their investigations into the use of the internet as an optional method of voting. On the federal level the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer has completed the terms of reference for internet voting and if approval is given, will offer the option for a by-election in 2013. It is also expected that if the pilot is considered successful, a federal policy on internet voting including security and ë ó î