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International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting

E-Vote-ID 2019: Electronic Voting pp 67–82Cite as

Online Voting in Ontario Municipal Elections: A Conflict of Legal Principles and Technology?

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 11759))

Abstract

This paper presents the first comprehensive study of the use of online voting technology in the province of Ontario, Canada. Despite having one of the largest concentrations of online voters globally, its use is not governed by any federal or provincial standards. This has left many municipalities to make decisions largely in isolation, relying on for-profit vendors to set their own bar for cybersecurity and public accountability. This study presents important observations about online voting use in the 2018 Ontario municipal election and questions whether the legal principles are being met by the technology deployed in practice.

This paper is an extended abstract. The full version is available online: https://whisperlab.org/ontario-online.pdf.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Harper v. Canada (Attorney General), [2004] 1 SCR 827, 2004 SCC 33 (CanLII). Available online: http://canlii.ca/t/1h2c9.

  2. 2.

    Security Assessment of Vendor Proposals, Toronto, 2014. Available online: https://www.verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Canada-2014-01543-security-report.pdf.

  3. 3.

    Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25. Available online: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/01m25.

  4. 4.

    Municipal Elections Act, 1996, S.O. 1996, c. 32, Sched. Available online: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/96m32.

  5. 5.

    Cusimano v. Toronto (City), 2011 ONSC 2527 (CanLII) at para. 67. Available online: http://canlii.ca/t/fl5pg.

  6. 6.

    List of Ontario Municipalities. Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/page1591.aspx.

  7. 7.

    https://elections.amo.on.ca.

  8. 8.

    https://whisperlab.org/ontario-online.csv.

  9. 9.

    https://www.valimised.ee/en/archive/statistics-about-internet-voting-estonia.

  10. 10.

    City of Sudbury. Post Election Report. Jan 21, 2019. Available: https://agendasonline.greatersudbury.ca/index.cfm?pg=feed&action=file&agenda=report&itemid=25&id=1312.

  11. 11.

    https://www.post.ch/en/about-us/company/media/press-releases/2019/swiss-post-temporarily-suspends-its-e-voting-system.

  12. 12.

    Ohio statewide voter files. Available: https://www6.sos.state.oh.us.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to a many individuals in Ontario and beyond for important insights on technology, policy and law. Special thanks to Jane Buchanan. See the full version of the complete list of acknowledgments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Anthony Cardillo & Aleksander Essex

  2. School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Nicholas Akinyokun

Authors
  1. Anthony Cardillo
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  2. Nicholas Akinyokun
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  3. Aleksander Essex
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aleksander Essex .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    Robert Krimmer

  2. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Melanie Volkamer

  3. Equipe Cassis, Bat A, LORIA, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Veronique Cortier

  4. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Bernhard Beckert

  5. University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Ralf Küsters

  6. Zentrum für Demokratie Aarau ZDA, Aarau, Switzerland

    Uwe Serdült

  7. Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    David Duenas-Cid

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Cardillo, A., Akinyokun, N., Essex, A. (2019). Online Voting in Ontario Municipal Elections: A Conflict of Legal Principles and Technology?. In: Krimmer, R., et al. Electronic Voting. E-Vote-ID 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11759. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30625-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30625-0_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-30624-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-30625-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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