More northern Ontario will mark digital ballots in this election, but online election far from 'bulletproof'

Election day isn't until Oct. 24, but in some cities and towns in northern Ontario, voters can cast a ballot right now, wherever they are.

Online voting is becoming more popular in municipal elections, with over half of the communities in the province now offering it in some way, including five in the northeast.

Voters in North Bay will be able to cast a digital ballot on Thursday for the first time in the city's history.

"For the people who are decided, they're going to vote early and they're going to get it done early," said former city councillor Sheldon Forgette, who is one of 29 candidates running for 10 council seats, after losing a bid for the mayor's job in 2018.

"I still think a large portion of the population is going to wait until the 24th, even if it is to vote online. They want to see the full election take place, they want to see the candidates talk about the issues."

In Timmins, where the digital polls opened on Tuesday, clerk Steph Palmateer is suggesting voters not wait until election day, just in case there are glitches in the system like there were four years ago.

Over 50 municipalities were affected by a system crash on election night in 2018. In Timmins, it meant pushing online voters to a polling station where they could still vote in person, with a paper ballot.

Palmateer says 60 per cent of Timmins voters cast a ballot online and if it hadn't been for election night troubles, "those numbers obviously would have been higher."

In Greater Sudbury, which like Timmins has been experimenting with internet voting since 2014, all voting was done using an online system in 2018 and the campaign had to be extended an extra day when the system went down on election day.

City clerk Eric Labelle says it was caused by a "miscommunication" between the election contractor and their service provider.

"We had very little control over the events that occurred that night and we had to be reactive," he said. 

"That isn't something that's going to happen this municipal election."

That's partly because Greater Sudbury is bringing back the option for citizens to mark an X on a paper ballot, as well as vote online, which they can do starting Friday. Labelle says coordinating the dual systems requires "significant planning" and will cost taxpayers an extra $600,000. 

In 2018, 82 per cent of Sudbury voters cast a ballot having to go to a polling station, but some city councillors wanted to see online voting totally abandoned.