City council’s unanimous approval of a move to a paperless municipal vote in 2022 generated plenty of pushback, questions and conspiratorial warnings.
So, why not go right to the target of all this distrust and anger, Simply Voting Inc., and talk to the founder, Brian Lack (pictured at left).
It’s the firm that will undertake the electronic vote in the 2022 municipal vote in St. Thomas, as they did in a limited fashion in the 2018 municipal election.
We won’t hold the face he is a Montreal Canadiens fan against him. He is an interesting and knowledgeable individual who is refreshingly forthright.
“I’m the first to admit there is no such thing as 100 per cent security. Nothing on the internet is 100 per cent secure, but we still use it.
“There are people who say we bank online so we should vote online. But actually, it’s not quite the same thing.
“In a way, there is probably more danger with voting online because if my bank account is hacked and I’m missing a few hundred dollars, I’m going to know about it.
“If your vote is hacked, how does anybody know? It is not the same analogy.”
“But we have a lot of in-house expertise on security and we work with security companies and we’re following the best practices to make it as secure as possible.”
You start with what Lack refers to as a secure ballot box.
“You have to make sure it is one person, one vote. Each citizen is going to be mailed a voter information letter with a PIN. It’s up to St . Thomas but we suggest nine digits.
“It’s random and it’s also unique. No two electors in St. Thomas will have the same PIN. And that goes out in a security-lined envelope.”
In other words, you can’t hold the letter up to the light and read the PIN.
And the letter is protected by Canadian mail-tampering laws.
To log in to vote you also need a complete date of birth.
“The year of birth alone is not good enough,” stresses Lack.
“And once you log in to vote, every step along the way we’re checking are you logged in with a valid PIN? Are you on the list of eligible voters? Have you already voted?
“If you’ve already voted on some other device, you’re stopped in your tracks . . . it will say ‘Sorry, you have already voted.’
And there is a time-out default, which is determined by the municipality. You have a window of opportunity to vote or else the process times out.
“If you’ve logged in by eight o’clock at night on voting day you can continue. If you log in after that time you can’t vote.”
Key question. After the election, what happens to the data?
“It’s written in the Municipal Elections Act that all ballots and electoral information have to be destroyed within 120 days.”
That’s a safeguard in the event of a candidate challenge or a recount may be required.
“It’s also a safeguard in not leaving copies of sensitive information out there with vendors.”
All information on the company’s backup systems is likewise deleted and “we sign a certificate of destruction and hand it over to the municipal clerk.
That data includes full name, date of birth, a physical address and a mailing address, which may be different and school board support.
“Those are the different pieces of information that we have. And of course, we have the vote.
“We provide the contents of the ballot box to the clerk at the end of the election. He or she could download it.
“When you vote on Simply Voting we cross your name off the list of electors and flag a record as having voted.”
And each vote is assigned a random receipt code which is typically four or five characters long.
“We don’t store the receipt code anywhere else. We don’t store that with your record so there is no way to cross-reference. So, we actually give the clerk a spreadsheet with each individual vote and the receipt code.
The voter will know their receipt code and they can go online punch in the receipt code and see whether or not a vote exists.
“The elections where we do choose to participate and where we do get contracts, are elections where we sleep well at night. It’s all about balancing risks and benefits.”
As for a potential system crash on election day, Lack explained the main voting system is in a data centre in Kelowna, B.C. And the backup is in Mississauga, and they are synchronized.
“Your vote is initially cast in Kelowna and in the same second it is added in Mississauga.”
If something happens out of Simply Voting’s control and takes down the data centre in Kelowna, data is redirected to the Mississauga servers in a matter of seconds.
“It’s a hot backup and it’s running. And that’s how we’re prepared for the worst.
“There’s an entire procedure manual that we provide to the clerk and they decide if they want to use it or scrap it or change it and we include suggested contingency plans.
“But, it’s not our call, it’s really the municipality’s call.”
Lack is the first to admit internet voting should not be considered at the federal or even provincial level.
It does make sense, however, at the municipal level.
“Internet voting is convenient,” advises Lack. “It’s convenient for the voters, it’s convenient for the staff in St. Thomas. Counting gets done in an instant. There are benefits.
“But you have to use the right tool for the right job. There are times to use a screwdriver, there are times to use a hammer and there are times to use a drill.
“I’m not going to try to push internet voting as the next sliced bread. If used in the wrong place, it’s horrible for democracy.
“The elections where we do choose to participate and where we do get contracts, are elections where we sleep well at night.
“It’s all about balancing risks and benefits.”
