Critic: ‘Putting an election online is fraud waiting to happen’
It’s finally happening. An entire municipality will utilize online-only voting in the next election with all balloting to be run via Scytl, the tech company based in Barcelona, Spain.
The controversial rollout is being deployed not in the U.S., where Scytl two years ago acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The online-only vote will take place Oct. 27 in Canada, when Leamington, Ontario, will become the first Canadian municipality to cast all ballots via an Internet-only voting process.
Every registered voter in Leamington, with a population of about 17,000, must cast ballots through mobile devices or computer.
The municipality’s website says “this sole method of voting follows Council’s strategic plan to be environmentally friendly and to embrace technology.”
“This cost effective type of voting will also address accessible voters’ issues,” said the site.
Canada’s CBC News reported the voting will be run with systems from Scytl.
Feedback on the news site expressed nearly universal concern about Internet security. Nearly all reader comments opposed the idea of online-only voting.
One reader wrote: “Putting an election online is fraud waiting to happen. It is a dare, to every criminal, and every mere tinkerer, anywhere in the word, to disrupt, modify, even cancel the results.”
Another warned: “He who controls the voting technology can decide the results. Stick with paper.”
“One giant step backwards for democracy,” wrote another commenter.