Paper Vote Canada

First I want to make it clear that I understand the public servants preparing these materials are working on a tight deadline, with a lot of information to prepare in a short period of time.  I sympathise with the challenges they face.

I believe in evidence-based decisionmaking.  Here is the fundamental problem about the current consultations (parallel Ministerial and Committee consultations) about electoral reform: they are both asking about electronic voting and online voting with no evidence provided whatsoever.  No learning materials on electronic and online voting, no backgrounder, not even any definitions.

We don't even have the very basics to agree on what it is that we're discussing, let alone to have an informed discussion.

Here's the process one is supposed to follow:

1. Go to Canada.ca/Democracy
2. Click on Learn



3. Click on "Electronic Voting and Online Voting"

Except you can't.  Because there is no section on electronic voting and online voting.  Here are the sections:


You can click all you want on any of the eleven sections provided, and out of all eleven, you will find literally a single sentence (maybe) relating to electronic voting, in Changing Canada's federal electoral system - How you vote.


Where is the evidence for the statement that introducing new technologies could pave the way for online voting?  Does "introducing new technologies at the polls" mean electronic voting machines?  What does it mean? Where is the mandate for this approach to gradually transition to online voting via electronic voting?  Where is the discussion and debate about this approach?  Well there is no evidence, no definition, no mandate and no discussion.  It just appeared out of nowhere.

Maybe we can look at the Glossary of Canadian electoral reform terms?  Well no. 
It has no definition for electronic voting


and no definition for online voting


The only other information available would involve reading the Electoral systems factsheet and for some reason clicking the Library of Parliament backgrounder, and then, having landed on a bunch of text, for some reason scrolling down page after page until you reach section 6.2 Online Voting.  Which, even if by some extraordinary degree of interest you manage to reach it, is a wildly inadequate background on online voting anyway.  There is no amount of clicking and scrolling that will get you to a backgrounder on electronic voting, for there is none.

It's worth noting in addition that the committee doesn't actually have electronic voting in its mandate, although that doesn't seem to make any difference in the fact that we're proceeding to discuss electronic voting anyway.

To Sum Up

• Canada is having a national conversation about online voting, with only a very limited backgrounder that is very hard to find.  Specifically, with no learning materials on the learning page.
• Canada is having a national conversation about electronic voting, which means - well it's not clear what it means, since it isn't defined anywhere - maybe it means electronic voting machines.  The committee has no Parliamentary mandate for discussing electronic voting, and there is no backgrounder or even a definition.  And there are no learning materials on the learning page.

As evidence-based decisionmaking goes, this is not a model process.

What You Can Do

If you're concerned about Canada using electronic voting machines or online voting in national elections, please participate in the consultation (deadline October 7, 2016) and make your opinion heard.

What I Did

To address the lack if information, I have written a briefing note on online voting.

I will write a briefing note on electronic voting as well, but in the meantime, you can watch Zachary Quinto explain how US electronic voting machines can be hacked, and then watch Tom Scott talk about why electronic voting is a bad idea.

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #EngagedInER, #ERRE, electronic voting, internet voting, online voting

The Federal electoral reform community dialogue tour with the  Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister of Democratic Institutions will be doing its Ottawa / Gatineau / National Capital Region (NCR) event on Thursday September 15, 2016 at 7pm in Gatineau.

7pm-9pm
Crowne Plaza Gatineau
Salon des Nations
2 Montcalm Street
Gatineau, Quebec (sector Hull)

The discussion will include online voting, for which I have written an online voting backgrounder as the consultation itself does not provide any detailed information.

This Ministerial consultation is a separate process from the Special Committee on Electoral Reform (ERRE) consultations, and associated MP consultations, and possible citizen consultations, which are also taking place across the country at the same time.

In theory you're supposed to know that the committee hashtag is #ERRE, whereas the Ministerial consultations have the hashtag #EngagedInER and tweet from @CdnDemocracy, but in practice I'm guessing many people are not aware of the distinction.  Plus which people are also using the hashtag #electoralreform.

In brief, the Ministerial consultations provide feedback to the Minister directly, while the Special Committee (ERRE) consultations feed into a report with recommendations that the Minister will consider (the Minister is of course free to decide not to accept certain committee recommendations).

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #EngagedInER, Electoral Reform, electoralreform, Gatineau, National Capital Region, NCR, ontario, Ottawa, Quebec

I'm going to assume that this is just an unfortunate misunderstanding about terminology and mandate.

Online voting means voting over the Internet.  You cast your vote from your home computer or smartphone.

Electronic voting means voting on a voting machine (a voting computer) at a polling place.

Electronic vote counting means vote tabulators of various sorts, most commonly optical mark-sense readers that count votes by scanning marked paper ballots.

Recommendations for Consultation

0. Discontinue discussion of electronic voting

However, if discussion of electronic voting is going to continue:

1. The mandate for the Electoral Reform committee should be amended, adding after the words "online voting" the following: ", and electronic voting.
   But it is probably too late to do that.
2. There should be clear definitions of electronic voting and online voting in the Host a Canadian federal electoral reform dialogue in your community materials and those definitions should also be provided to the committee.
3. The focus of the electoral reform dialogue should be placed on online voting to respect the original committee mandate.
4. The Library of Parliament Background Paper 2016-06 on Electoral Systems should have a section on electronic voting added.
5. The Electoral Reform committee online survey should have questions about electronic voting added, and the consequences of currently-completed surveys only having questions about online voting will have to be considered.
6. In future, more care must be taken with terminology used and alignment between committee activities and consultation materials.

Recommendations for Individuals

If you're concerned about Canada using electronic voting machines or online voting in national elections, please participate in the consultation (deadline October 7, 2016) and make your opinion heard.

Background

The terms of reference for the Special Committee on Electoral Reform very clearly say only online voting.  There is no mention of electronic voting.

Here's Vote 79



and Vote 80


That's the mandate discussed in Parliament.

The town hall material and discussion has proceeded to talk about electronic voting. Without an adequate backgrounder. Without even a definition. So we may get reporting back about some jumbled up mix of voting machines and online voting, while the committee itself has only discussed online voting.

And electronic voting is a VERY DIFFERENT DISCUSSION than just online voting, with very different considerations.

I will now have to write a separate briefing about electronic voting machine risks.

Anyway, here's some of the town hall materials in order to demonstrate that electronic voting is being discussed.

Potential Canadian federal electoral reform event dialogue topics and questions


So it is clear that the terminology electronic voting and online voting are not being used interchangeably, they are mentioned separately; this is not just confusing one term for the other.

Electronic voting and online voting both link to this text below about "introducing new technologies at the polls", which again has no Parliamentary mandate that I can see, other than a chain of assumptions about how using voting machines could lead to using online voting.  There is no definition of either electronic voting or online voting provided.

Changing Canada’s federal electoral system


In addition, the only thing that is even close to a briefing, the Library of Parliament Background Paper 2016-06-E on Electoral Systems, which is already weak on online voting, has no section about electronic voting at all (presumably because it's not in the committee mandate).

And the committee survey also doesn't ask any questions about electronic voting.

Some of the dialogue guidance even focuses on electronic voting alone, without mentioning online voting.

Sample Canadian federal electoral reform event agenda and facilitator guide


And there are at the time of this writing five variations of the Canadian Democracy tweet below, asking about electronic voting; I assume at least one tweet per town hall meeting.

"Electronic and Online voting?  Good idea? Bad idea? #EngagedinER" - @CdnDemocracy - 10:56 PM - 9 Sep 2016

Electronic and Online voting? Good idea? Bad idea? #EngagedinER

— Canadian Democracy (@CdnDemocracy) September 10, 2016

So to sum up:

• The town halls / MP meetings / Minister meetings / citizen-led meetings are discussing "electronic voting" despite this not being in the Parliamentary mandate for the Special Committee on Electoral Reform.
• Nowhere that I can find is "electronic voting" defined.  Apparently it means voting machines, but this is not actually written down anywhere.

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #EngagedInER, #ERRE, canada, e-voting, electronic voting

Make It Short

The Canadian government has already been cyberattacked by nation-states, computer security experts warn that online voting is not secure, national security experts warn that online voting is not secure, and online voting won't increase turnout.

Here's the evidence:

• Canadian government departments have already been seriously hacked (attacked) by other countries. Departments including the Finance Department, Treasury Board Secretariat and Defence Research and Development Canada (in 2011) and the National Research Council (in 2014) were successfully attacked. These attacks resulted in significant disruption and months worth of technical work in order to recover.
• Canada's Chief Electoral Officer is concerned about "challenges that online voting present for the integrity and secrecy of the vote" and says "caution is needed in moving forward to ensure that Canadians continue to have the same high level of trust in the integrity of elections"
• Internet voting does not appreciably increase turnout, including youth turnout.  In general the people who take advantage of voting online are middle-aged voters who would have voted at a polling station anyway.  (I realise this may seem counterintuitive, but the evidence shows this again and again, in country after country, including in Canada.)  
• The largest US organisation of computer scientists, the ACM, has a consensus recommendation opposing the use of Internet voting: "systems need some means of preserving the ability to audit and/or recount the votes.  At the present, paper-based systems provide the best available technology to do this."
• The Australian Parliament, after an extensive inquiry in 2013 specifially about electronic and online voting, with 20 hearings and over 200 submissions, concluded "Australia is not in a position to introduce any large-scale system of electronic voting in the near future without catastrophically compromising our electoral integrity."
• The US Department of Homeland Security recommends against Internet voting: "We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters’ expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security" says Neil Jenkins, Senior Advisor for Cybersecurity Capabilities and Strategy

As further quick background I recommend:

• Why Electronic [and Online] Voting is a BAD Idea - an 8 minute video by Tom Scott
• New Brunswick has a reasonably balanced briefing (PDF) available (for its own voting consultation).  There are 2 pages on Internet voting; pages 18-19.  Vote par Internet - de la page 20 à la page 21 dans « Renforcer la démocratie au Nouveau-Brunswick » (PDF)

I Want To Know More

• Eric Geller has written a comprehensive article about online voting, interviewing many of the experts in the field.
• Andrew Appel has done a 20 minute video explaining the history of voting and the issues with online voting
• J. Alex Halderman has written a comprehensive book chapter (PDF) covering real world security risks with electronic voting and (in section 7.3) Internet voting
• J. Alex Halderman has done a 21 minute video about technical risks associated with Internet voting 
• Independent Report on E-voting in Estonia
• Australian Parliamentary Library report from 2012 - e-voting: the promise and the practice, particularly the section International experience with e-voting (this is the kind of report that Canada should have produced, or at least we should have cited this report, along with all of the material I have provided above)

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #EngagedInER, #ERRE, canada, internet voting, online voting

The City of Kitchener did a report in 2012, titled FCS-12-191 Alternative Voting - Internet Voting (link will open a page viewer).

Because the City of Kitchener website provides a page viewer and a button to generate a PDF download, I've made a copy of the PDF, you can view and download it from Google Drive (click the down-pointing arrow in the upper right of that screen to download).

The report is particularly good is in the area of turnout.  It concludes

there is no clear indication that [internet voting] increases voter turnout. There is data that shows internet voting does not increase voter turnout amongst younger voters. 

The conclusion is supported by tables in the Results and Outcomes section showing data from Markham, Peterborough, and Burlington, with a particularly detailed breakdown for Markham.  See the image extracted from the document below:


Let me re-emphasize the last sentence in the above extract:

There is clear evidence that, regardless of geography internet voting does not attract younger voters.

I believe it is the Markham evidence that underlies the Canadian Internet Voting Project's (@ivotingproject) October 31, 2015 tweet stating "Young ontario voters (aged 18-24) more likely to use paper ballots than internet voting"

Young ontario voters (aged 18-24) more likely to use paper ballots than internet voting #election #onlinevoting

— i-voting Project (@ivotingproject) October 31, 2015

The Kitchener report however unfortunately comes to an incorrect conclusion about security "Security issues are a real threat but most studies conclude that the risk is small to medium." The reality is most studies conclude the risk is large.

The staff report's Executive Summary recommended against adopting Internet voting and indeed Kitchener rejected Internet voting for 2014.

Executive Summary (extract)

Staff is of the opinion that [internet voting] should not be introduced in 2014 based on several factors outlined in greater detail in this report such as:

• Security of an internet voting system;
• Data that suggests it does not increase voter turnout and in particular, younger voters;
• Does not meet all of the principles of a democratic voting process;
• Cost;
• The lack of overarching guidelines especially in the area of voting system security;

Previously
June 23, 2016  City of Mississauga report on Internet Voting

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #ERRE, internet voting, Kitchener, online voting, ontario, report

The background information provided by the Special Committee on Electoral Reform is wildly inadequate in the context of online voting.  It provides only four short paragraphs.  There is no direct citation of computer scientists or computer security experts in the background paper.  I had considered this a problem, but not an insurmountable one, but now that background paper is the only information provided to inform citizens completing the committee's online survey.


The background paper does not draw upon sufficient evidence, and its "on the one hand, on the other hand" conclusion is weak.  See my previous blog post Online voting section of Background Paper 2016-06-E on Electoral Systems.

Before you complete the online voting section of the Electoral Reform survey, I encourage you to review the evidence provided below.

Make It Short

The Canadian government has already been cyberattacked by nation-states, computer security experts warn that online voting is not secure, national security experts warn that online voting is not secure, and online voting won't increase turnout.

Here's the evidence:

• Canadian government departments have already been seriously hacked (attacked) by other countries. Departments including the Finance Department, Treasury Board Secretariat and Defence Research and Development Canada (in 2011) and the National Research Council (in 2014) were successfully attacked. These attacks resulted in significant disruption and months worth of technical work in order to recover.
• Canada's Chief Electoral Officer is concerned about "challenges that online voting present for the integrity and secrecy of the vote" and says "caution is needed in moving forward to ensure that Canadians continue to have the same high level of trust in the integrity of elections"
• Internet voting does not appreciably increase turnout, including youth turnout.  In general the people who take advantage of voting online are middle-aged voters who would have voted at a polling station anyway.  (I realise this may seem counterintuitive, but the evidence shows this again and again, in country after country, including in Canada.)  
• The largest US organisation of computer scientists, the ACM, has a consensus recommendation opposing the use of Internet voting: "systems need some means of preserving the ability to audit and/or recount the votes.  At the present, paper-based systems provide the best available technology to do this."
• The Australian Parliament, after an extensive inquiry in 2013 specifially about electronic and online voting, with 20 hearings and over 200 submissions, concluded "Australia is not in a position to introduce any large-scale system of electronic voting in the near future without catastrophically compromising our electoral integrity."
• The US Department of Homeland Security recommends against Internet voting: "We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters’ expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security" says Neil Jenkins, Senior Advisor for Cybersecurity Capabilities and Strategy

As further quick background I recommend:

• Why Electronic [and Online] Voting is a BAD Idea - an 8 minute video by Tom Scott
• New Brunswick has a reasonably balanced briefing (PDF) available (for its own voting consultation).  There are 2 pages on Internet voting; pages 18-19.  Vote par Internet - de la page 20 à la page 21 dans « Renforcer la démocratie au Nouveau-Brunswick » (PDF)

I Want To Know More

• Eric Geller has written a comprehensive article about online voting, interviewing many of the experts in the field.
• Andrew Appel has done a 20 minute video explaining the history of voting and the issues with online voting
• J. Alex Halderman has written a comprehensive book chapter (PDF) covering real world security risks with electronic voting and (in section 7.3) Internet voting
• J. Alex Halderman has done a 21 minute video about technical risks associated with Internet voting 
• Independent Report on E-voting in Estonia
• Australian Parliamentary Library report from 2012 - e-voting: the promise and the practice, particularly the section International experience with e-voting (this is the kind of report that Canada should have produced, or at least we should have cited this report, along with all of the material I have provided above)

Beyond that, there are 12 years worth of material in this blog itself

http://blog.papervotecanada.ca/

and 6 years worth of material in my Twitter

http://twitter.com/papervote

I'm happy to respond to specific requests for particular evidence related to Internet voting. 

Take the Survey

Now that you've had a chance to get a proper briefing with relevant evidence, I encourage you to complete the online survey (deadline unknown; presumably before deadline October 7, 2016) or use any of the other methods to contribute to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform.

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #ERRE, canada, consultation, internet voting, online voting

UPDATE 2016-07-19: Official transcripts of Marc Mayrand and ... are available and excerpted below.

Marc Mayrand's opening remarks are also available from Elections Canada.

Also see @kady's liveblog
and her article Why not fight about online voting instead?
in response to which I have posted a comment.

Below are excerpts specific to online voting.  Any emphasis (bold italics) in the text is mine.

TRANSCRIPT START - July 7, 2016 - Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand

Mr. John Aldag:
    ... if we were to look at things like some form of online voting or electronic voting, would the timeline of May 2017 include that kind of introduction, or would it be more of a status quo?

Mr. Marc Mayrand:
    I have no plans to introduce online voting for 2019. I would need, certainly, very clear directions in that regard. I think there's still a lot of research to be done, and there are many considerations. That's what I would like to see the committee doing in its work, addressing some of the key considerations and giving us some direction on where we should go and how should we proceed to explore and test online voting at some point. I doubt very much that this could be done by 2019, given the scope of the reform we're looking at. I think that would be a significant burden on capacity.











    Yes.



    Unfortunately, we'll have to go to the next question, but it's a good thought, and we can pick up on it in a bit.






    I believe so. If we want Canadians to have confidence in the electoral system, we need to make sure it's one they accept.



    Let's just say it doesn't seem too difficult.

    I'd like to know whether you're considering giving Canadians the option between voting online, similar to electronic tax return filing, and going to the polling station and showing identification.


















Mr. Marc Mayrand:
    It's very difficult for me to really respond clearly and directly to your question.
    I think the one thing that comes to mind first of all is that this committee has a mandate. The other aspect is that these issues require, I think, assessing what the social acceptability of online voting or mandatory voting. I understand that this committee will undertake extensive public consultations over the next short while, looking at these matters and voting systems.
    I'm not aware if the procedure and House affairs committee has by tradition undertaken such broad consultations. That's the one caveat I would put out there. I think it's important to have significant consultation on these matters. They are important and directly affect electors.

Mr. Matt DeCourcey:
    ...
    We observed that students in Fredericton really appreciated being able to vote on campus. That worked out very well.
[English]

     I wonder if maybe you could share some evidence that demonstrates that engaging young Canadians, those below 18 and those entering adulthood, in education around civic affairs, democratic institutions, voting, helps enhance voter turnout and helps encourage long-term participation in the process. We absolutely want to encourage greater numbers of Canadians voting. I'm convinced of that. Is there any direction you can send us?

Mr. Marc Mayrand:
   ...
    We can build all sorts of online services, remove all sorts of barriers, but if people don't have the interest, don't have the knowledge, they may not take advantage of the opportunity. I think these things go hand in hand.

Mr. Luc Thériault:
    I'd like to know whether you've done any studies in the past on online voting. You are aware of the problems Quebec experienced with that in 2005. I imagine that, even under the current voting system, you would be able to further automate the process or offer online voting. That was my understanding.
    Is that correct?

Mr. Marc Mayrand:
    We did a fair number of intensive studies for a few years, at the beginning of the decade, and we do indeed have a solid grasp of the issues, the barriers, the possibilities, and the associated risks. I can share that information with the committee.

Ms. Elizabeth May:
     ... it's an honour again to get to ask a few more questions of you, Mr. Mayrand.
    On the online voting question, I've seen in some commentaries that there's a societal benefit in the social cohesion of people collectively experiencing voting, even the lining up—I think we've all had great experiences as voters before we became candidates—and what happens when you're standing in line. Is there any literature on this? Is this a concern to be weighed against the convenience factor of online voting?

Mr. Marc Mayrand:
    I've certainly heard about it. I don't recall reading about it. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. We can see if we can find anything about it.

Mrs. Sherry Romanado:
    ...
    On the flip side, if Canada did want to implement online voting—and now I'm talking about folks who are in rural areas who may not have broadband Internet—what would be some of the barriers for our being able to implement something? Again, I bring up maybe lack of Internet or good Internet access.
    Could you elaborate on some of the other barriers?

Mr. Marc Mayrand:
    Connectivity, even though it's improving all the time, remains an issue in many parts of the country. As I mentioned earlier, electronic tabulation may have its limits for very remote areas for the simple fact that connectivity is not always up to par. I think that's a government as a whole issue that needs to be prioritized. I believe there are various programs to improve broadband access and speedy Internet access across the country and it's an effort that needs to be continued.

TRANSCRIPT END

TRANSCRIPT START

Below is my original unofficial transcription.  Please use the official transcripts above instead.

Unoffical transcription from ParlVu (meeting 4, 10am).

To Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand

John Aldag - Q "If we were to look at something like online voting, electronic voting, would the timeline of May 2017 include that kind of introduction?"

Marc Mayrand - A "I have no plans to introduce online voting for 2019. ... I think there's still a lot of research to be done, and there are many considerations... [committee] should give [Elections] some direction ... how should we proceed to explore and test online voting at some point.  I doubt very much this could be done by 2019 given the scope of the reform we're looking at... would be a significant burden."

Luc Thériault (in translation) - Q "With regards to online voting you said that you would like to have clear guidelines from the committee and I would like to hear a little bit more on this point.  What do you foresee as being problematic on this front? We know that voting is a very solemn process, it takes place in private and how then will we manage such issues with online voting?"

Marc Mayrand (in translation) - A "Thank you for the question.  Yes we've done some studies on this and I'm delighted to share them with the committee.  Obviously technology is changing quickly and so that is something we have to take into consideration, people have been talking about online voting for some time now, I can share these studies with the committee.  To my mind one thing that's important though is the social acceptability of online voting, these questions related to security, to vulnerability, we would have to define the parameters of where this vote would be used - would you be able to vote from any computer, or would it still be supervised electronic voting, would you have to vote from a specific place.  I think that it would be useful to start to narrow down the focus, narrow down the field.  For example we can have postal voting at the moment and that's not a supervised vote, and so are are there risks related to that... [for online voting] would they be any different, could they be mitigated?  That's the sort of question that we would have to have a look at & I'd like to have some input on that.  If we look at online voting in Canada we see that it is somewhere that progress has been made in the municipalities but it's not something that is done at the provincial level, at the federal level... some studies have been undertaken but we haven't had any new attempts; everyone's had a look at it but everybody seems to be waiting to have some direction from the top to see what it is we should do, where we should go if we want to go ahead with online voting."

Ruby Sahota - Q "What other changes can we make to the Elections Canada Act to ensure that we are inclusive and that we respect all the diversity that we have in Canada."

Marc Mayrand - A "If you want to make a fundamental different in accessibility... you need to really seriously look at online voting.  ... If we really want to make a breakthrough, it would be to explore more aggressively online voting - how make it an option for these electors."

...

Ruby Sahota - Q "You were talking a lot about security and social acceptability, I think that the world is starting to move towards finding it socially acceptable doing online, I mean people make million dollar deals online, and transfer money all the time, so it's hard for me to figure out why we can't figure out a way to vote that's secure online and I think people would come onboard since it would open it up to so many more people."

Chair interjects as Sahota's question time is up.

Sherry Romanado (in translation) - Q "Could you give use a bit more information on ... technology that could be used to improve voting. ..."

Marc Mayrand (in translation) - A "... Rendering this automatic will take a lot of work, however there is no reason for us not to have automated forms and automated voting, this would also guarantee a better compliance, there would be fewer errors, errors would be picked up by the machines used. ..."

...

Sherry Romanado (in translation)  - Q "With regards to online voting, I know that a number of us have already raised the matter, we want there to be a heightened participation amongst Canadians.  Currently we can file our taxes online, or on paper, it's not very difficult ... And so do you think that it would be possible to allow Canadians to vote online if they want to, just as we do with our tax returns - but they would still have the option to go to the polling station if they would wish to?"

Marc Mayrand (in translation) - A "To me that is an issue rather of facts.  I don't think that in any case we would replace paper voting by online voting, all we would do would be to provide another option for voters, and then voters will be able to choose the one that they want. ... With online voting, there would be positive benefits for certain groups, we have to move forward in a progressive and wary way."

Sherry Romanado - Q "Instead of selecting a specific group to pilot online voting, could we not leave it up to the choice of the Canadians, how they would vote?  I can order a pizza online, I can order a Starbucks coffee or charge up my bank account, I can do everything online.  On the day of the vote I may be busy, it may be raining, it may be I don't want to go out that day, if I could do it from home, it gives me that option that I don't lose my opportunity to vote. ... I think it could really change the way we do our electoral process, and I would hate to wait another two, three, four elections before we go that route."

Marc Mayrand - A "Well that's where we start going, we have to be careful.  We need to look also at security.  There are certain characteristics of the vote that we want to preserve: it's confidentiality, it's secrecy, the reliability and the integrity.  When we start looking at moving online, I would point out the big difference currently, ... with any other services you get online, the risk of online services currently is [borne] by the provider - if you go online on the bank, you use your MasterCard, somebody [misuses] it or hacks your account, it will be the provider that will cover that off.  That's one aspect which does not exist in the voting process.  The other aspect is that we lack a universal authentication system in Canada, and without such a thing it's very difficult--you can find some alternatives.  The problem we have is that if you get a code with Revenue Canada or with the bank or your PIN, everybody tells you to keep it secret, and you have an interest in keeping it secret, you have a personal interest - I'm not sure we can say the same when it comes to voting."

Chair interjects as Romanado's question time is up.

Any emphasis (bolding) above is mine.

Thanks to @kady's liveblog, which touches on all these conversations in summary.

Labels: #CdnDemocracy, #ERRE, internet voting, online voting, transcript