Online voting: Thunder Bay council to get yet another report
City councillors in Thunder Bay are one step closer to approving electronic voting for the next municipal election.
Councillors like Trevor Giertuga say they’ve come around to accepting online and telephone voting.
"Last time I voted against internet voting, but this time, I believe I'm going to vote in favour of it,” he said.
“But I don't want to do it as a knee-jerk reaction based on frustrations from this election. I'm just changing my mind on this one.”
Giertuga, along with others, said they wanted the two new councillors to get all of the information they did four years ago, to learn about electronic voting.
But council newcomer Shelby Ch'ng said she's already made up her mind, and supports voting online.
“Ninety-six other municipalities are already online. We are so behind we can learn from them. I'm sure people were afraid of carrier pigeons when they came out too."
'No 100% guarantee'
The discussion took place after Shift Network president Peter Marchl made a presentation to council that highlighted the benefits of online voting
Some councillors noted that, in some communities where online voting was available, voter turnout was boosted.
Councillor Aldo Ruberto said he has “always supported the traditional method of voting, until this last election,” but now is the time to embrace voting online.
“For the last five elections, there's always been an issue; there's always been a problem.”
As for online voting, he noted "there is no 100 per cent guarantee. If anybody wants to infiltrate any type of system you have, they will do it. As mentioned, online voting has been accepted in other municipalities. Why are they doing it?"
City clerk John Hannam said it will take a few months to find out from other municipalities about the success of their online votes.
He said all that information will get compiled into a report for the new year.