PEI·PEI votes

Security issues nix online voting for P.E.I. election

With a relatively short campaign and a four-day weekend just before voting day, time is short for mailing in ballots for the P.E.I. election, but Elections P.E.I. says online voting is not the solution.

'You still don't know who's on the other end of that computer'

Kevin Yarr · CBC News · Posted: Apr 10, 2019 7:52 AM EDT | Last Updated: April 10, 2019

Screen showing online voting in 2016 P.E.I. plebiscite on electoral reform. — Elections P.E.I. experimented with online voting during the 2016 plebiscite on electoral reform. (Sally Pitt/CBC)

With a relatively short campaign and a four-day weekend just before voting day, time is short for mailing in ballots for the P.E.I. election.

But Elections P.E.I. says online voting is not the solution. Operations manager Paul Alan said Elections P.E.I. considered it, but determined there is too much risk of voting fraud. Mail-in ballots, he said, provide security options that are not available online.

With the referendum, people are just very involved, very engaged.— Tim Garrity

"We have your signature, we have your ID. We mail you a ballot, you fill it out, you have to sign a security envelope to send it back and we match up the signatures when they come back here to make sure it was you that actually voted," said Alan.

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"If we were to assign you an electronic voting opportunity if you're away, we don't know that it's actually you that's pushing that button to vote. Even though we may send a security PIN of some sort, you still don't know who's on the other end of that computer making that selection."

Alan said auditors flagged the security risks after online voting was tested during the 2016 electoral reform plebiscite.

Given challenges caused by the Easter weekend, Alan said the safest option for ballots is to use express post or courier.

'Quite an election'

The deadline to apply for mail-in ballots was Tuesday, April 9. Elections P.E.I. is now sending out the ballots, which will have to be returned to Elections P.E.I. by noon on election day, April 23, to count.

There were 630 applicants for mail-in ballots, up from 432 in the 2015 election, said P.E.I.'s chief electoral officer, Tim Garrity.

"There just seems to be a lot of engagement. It's quite an election that we're dealing with right now and with the referendum, people are just very involved, very engaged."

Garrity said he thinks traveling Islanders contributed to the numbers.

"We have a lot of people that are in Florida right now or are taking advantage of different vacations down south. So I think that has a part of do with it as well, just the time of year."