Nicole Goodman

Internet Voting in a Local Election in Canada

In the past decade, Internet voting has been used in hundreds of binding elections at multiple levels of government throughout the world. Though many European jurisdictions have established well-developed online voting models, Canada is quickly emerging as an important research case. To date, there have been more instances of remote Internet voting in local Canadian elections than any other country. There have been more than two million remote Internet voting opportunities in over 90 local Canadian elections. This chapter analyzes the effects of online ballots by examining the City of Markham, Ontario as a case study. Using survey data from the 2003, 2006, and 2010 Markham municipal elections, a 2010 survey of candidates and other municipal data were applicable, the chapter considers which electors are using Internet voting, its potential to positively impact voting turnout, whether it is encouraging the participation of reported nonvoters, and assesses the implications for candidates and campaigns.

The patchwork of internet voting in Canada

Internet voting developments in Canada are growing quickly, with activity focused in local elections, political party leadership votes and unions. In some instances, the federal structure of the Canadian state facilitates Internet voting use, while in others it inhibits it. The result of this system of divided jurisdiction is that Internet voting use in Canada resembles a patchwork, showing strong concentration in some areas and no penetration in other places. In addition to scattered geographic use, a variety of approaches to implementation are employed. In some cases online ballots are complementary to paper, while in others elections are now fully electronic. I-voting can be a twostep process requiring registration or a more direct one-step voting procedure. Likewise, Internet voting is offered in the advance portion of certain elections, whereas in others it is available for the full voting period. Finally, given that private companies administer the Internet voting portion of elections there is also a mixture of technology.

Internet Voting in Sub-national Elections: Policy Learning in Canada and Australia

In advanced democracies, the expansion of internet voting in national elections appears to have stalled. New announcements by governments of online voting initiatives seem to be matched by announcements elsewhere that trials will not proceed, or that completed trials will not result in wider deployment. Debates between proponents and opponents of internet voting in advanced democracies now run along well-worn lines. The same examples are endlessly recycled. This apparent inertia at the national level masks the gradual increase in examples of deployment at the sub-national level. These sub-national cases provide a growing stock of evidence about more and less successful ways of managing transitions to voting by internet. This article draws upon advocacy coalition theory to analyse some of these sub-national developments, focusing on remote online voting in Australia and Canada.

Reducing the Cost of Voting: An Evaluation of Internet Voting’s Effect on Turnout

Voting models assume that voting costs impact turnout. As turnout declined across advanced democracies, governments cycled through reforms aiming to reduce costs to increase participation. Internet voting, used in elections across a dozen countries, promises to reduce voting costs dramatically. Yet, identifying its effect on turnout has proven difficult. We use original panel data of local elections in Ontario, Canada and fixed effects estimators. Results show internet voting can increase turnout by 3.5 pp with larger increases when vote by mail is not yet adopted, and greater use when registration is not required. Our estimates suggest that internet voting is unlikely to solve the low turnout crisis and implies that cost arguments do not fully account for recent turnout declines.