St. Albert will join Edmonton and Strathcona County in an Internet voting pilot for the 2013 municipal election, provided it can secure grant funding.
Council voted by majority Monday to proceed with the pilot project, provided it receives provincial approval. The grant funding must also be received by Sept. 1.
Under the pilot program, as proposed by chief legislative officer Chris Belke and corporate business manager Travis Peter, the city would offer an advance poll accessible through the Internet, in the days leading up to the October 2013 municipal election. As envisioned, electors would take part in a two-step process, similar to what they have to do now at voting stations. They would first be required to register, and would receive their ballots only after registration was complete.
Mayor Nolan Crouse has repeatedly pitched the idea of letting St. Albert pilot some form of Internet voting project, even using Twitter to express the city’s desires to the provincial government. The idea has picked up some steam since the last municipal election in St. Albert, in which barely 34 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots.
But Belke was cautious in his predictions of what impact Internet voting would have on turnout.
“There is no guarantee that by providing Internet voting we will increase voter turnout,” Belke told council Monday. “There is no expectation. Trials done in Ontario last year saw that while there is a healthy uptake, the overall votes do not increase substantially.”
The proposed pilot involving Edmonton, Strathcona County and St. Albert would be held for advance polls instead of during the entire election. That way, if there were some sort of unexpected system failure, electors would be still be able to vote at a polling station on election day.
The pilot is also contingent on obtaining grant funding from a provincial government that might be different after Monday’s provincial election. Belke said there are costs associated with the project and even if the three cities receive the grant for the project, they would not be eligible for it in subsequent years because it funds only pilots.
“If Internet voting is successful and the public likes it, we might not have a lot of choice in the future,” even without the grant funding to offset costs, said Belke.
Security is also a concern, especially in the wake of the denial-of-service attack that hampered Internet voting during the federal NDP leadership vote last month.
“There was a breach of security but it didn’t affect the integrity of the votes that had been cast,” Belke said.
But Crouse said it was time not just for St. Albert, but also for all of Alberta to embrace the technology available today.
“I believe this is the wave of the future and I think we need to see if we can lead the pack here,” Crouse said. “It’s something I’ve nudged people on so I hope we can get the province to make it happen.”
