Canada’s elections authorities move slowly, carefully to digitize voting

Election Nova Scotia's historic step is a good example of the kind of cautious, incremental approach often taken by elections authorities when it comes to technology.

With the tap of a tablet, a voter in the Nova Scotia riding of Preston will make history sometime this year, becoming the first citizen to cast an electronic ballot in any Canadian or provincial election.

The decision by Elections Nova Scotia — with the blessings of the Nova Scotia legislature — to allow voters to mark their ‘X’ using a tablet instead of good old-fashioned pencil and paper is the latest example of an election administrator integrating digital technology into the ancient process of voting in the name of improving efficiency, speed and accuracy.

“It’s an evolution of politics,” said Fred DeLorey, who is not only a native of Nova Scotia but is also a veteran of many election campaigns, most recently as the national campaign manager for the federal Conservatives in 2021.

“There was a time when we voted by raising a hand in a room. So there’s always going to be people that want to change and to advance things and to make things easier.”

Among all the federal and provincial elections authorities, Elections Nova Scotia has arguably moved the leading edge when it comes to technology use. For its next general election, scheduled for 2025, Elections Nova Scotia will allow members of the Canadian Forces who are posted overseas at the time of the election to vote online. So far, the Northwest Territories is the only other federal, provincial or territorial jurisdiction to allow internet-based balloting. (The Northwest Territories broke that barrier for its 2019 election.)

Meanwhile, many municipalities have been pushing even further and have incorporated online voting with increasing frequency. Political parties have been doing the same thing for leadership races, most recently in the 2022 federal Conservative leadership race.

The most commonly adopted digital technology, at this point, are machines used to scan paper ballots and quickly tabulate results. British Columbia, Ontario and New Brunswick, for example, have all used tabulation machines. Alberta will enhance the use of tabulation machines in the election about to get underway in that province and Manitoba will use machines to count ballots for the first time in its history during the fall election there.

Elections Canada, on the other hand, has no plans to introduce technology into the voting process, though it did allow voters to go online to request a paper-based mail-in ballot for the 2021 election. But beyond that, Elections Canada believes a human being casting a paper ballot and a human being processing and counting those paper ballots is still the best way to secure an election. And, indeed, that’s the way it’s been for every single federal election ever: paper ballots and human beings. Elections Canada, in fact, keeps all paper ballots cast in any federal general election or byelection in a warehouse near downtown Ottawa and only disposes of them after 10 years in storage.