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Issue

Mail-in

Intelivote

e-Voting

1

The voter received an incorrect ballot in the mail.  It has incorrect candidates and/or races on it.  This may be a result of change of address, moving, and/or an inaccurate enumeration record. Voter’s list is out of date, the voter moved or the boundaries changed.

Have to manually exchange a mail-in ballot for the proper one. Voter must return the incorrect one and request the correct ballot.

Voter can call the Voter Help Centre and the voter’s information is corrected in the system dynamically while the voter is on the phone.  The correct candidates are presented when the voter connects to the e-Voting system.

2

The election is over and the ballots have to be counted before all the results will be known. Hours of labour are required. Thousands of mailed in ballots must be organized, reviewed, scanned and/or counted and eventually destroyed.

Mailed in ballots must be opened, examined for spoiled status, sorted, counted and the results attested. This involves many people over numerous hours.

Vote results are immediate and no additional labour costs are required to manage vote counting. There is an audit process to ensure secrecy and, after the required waiting period and once directed, ballot destruction is electronic and verifiable.

3

Spoiled ballots.  Ballots may be declared spoiled if the required declaration form is not signed or is missing, a race is over-voted, any note(s) or writing is included on the ballot face, the secrecy envelope is not used, more than one ballot is in the envelope, or the ballot is not returned on time.

Challenges by candidates or election officials to determine voter intention may result in spoiled ballots or a recount. Any ballot may be subjected to examination and may be deemed spoiled.

The voter has no indication when they mailed the ballot if it will be deemed spoiled for any reason. There is no confirmation process.  Recounts are time consuming and inject subjectivity into voter intent.

The voter cannot accidentally spoil a ballot and allowances can be made to allow under-voting.  A ballot confirmation process is included by race to ensure that the voter’s intention is always verified and the counting of the ballot is always confirmed. There are no spoiled ballots.

Voter intention is left with the voter. Recounts are quick and inexpensive.

4

Visually impaired or physically challenged voters often require assistance which may include someone else marking their ballot on their behalf.  The secrecy of the vote is compromised.  These voters should be provided with an equal opportunity to participate and vote without anyone else knowing their selection but they often require assistance actually marking their ballot.

Visually impaired voters are not able to read the ballot.  Physically challenged voters are possibly not able to complete specific tasks to reseal the envelope or to physically get to a polling station or election office to exchange an incorrect ballot.

Visually impaired voters are provided with options including telephone voting and Internet screen recognition. Physically challenged voters do not need to attend a polling station to exchange an incorrect ballot and have either a phone or PC based solution to cast their ballot.

5

To process ballots in a timelier manner, equipment to scan or tabulate the paper mail-in ballots must be purchased or leased.  Mailed in ballots cannot be counted or processed in advance and so must be opened and counted after the official end time on election day.  This is time consuming, labour intensive and costly.

Tabulating and scanning hardware is expensive and may not be available as all municipalities need the technology at the same time.  Ballot quality after it has been folded and mailed is prone to jamming in tabulators and scanners.

E-Voting allows for immediate results and costs are based upon the number of eligible voters.  There is no equipment to buy or rent.

6

In order to allow ample time for the mail-in ballot kit to be sent out, marked by the voter and returned by mail, the timeline from mail out to election is critical and extensive.  Voters must act in a timely manner to ensure their ballot is mailed, processed and delivered to meet the deadlines.

There is a need to provide long lead times for voters to receive/vote a ballot then mail the ballot to the election offices. Candidates still may be campaigning and electors may have already returned their ballot with weeks still remaining before the election.  Voters may not have all the information prior to mailing the ballot.

A significantly shorter timeline is required for voter information to be mailed out. No time is required for mail back and voters can vote right up to the last minute of the election.  Candidates can campaign right up to election day and still influence voter choice.

7

Final election costs may not be know based on mail back costs and labour required to process ballots.  Participation rates of voters will determine how much the municipality is charged for mail back costs for the ballots. Scanner and tabulator costs have to be considered as well.

Mail back costs are variable and unknown based upon number of participating voters and the accuracy of the electors list.

Price quoted to the municipality is based on eligible voters and is a firm fixed price.

8

Changes that must be made to the voters list are only identified if the voter comes and requests a new ballot which properly reflects their new address or name.

Manual effort to transcribe forms completed by voters who had to request corrected ballots based on out dated voter list information is an additional cost.

Elector’s information that is changed via the Voter Help Line is updated immediately and stored electronically for inclusion in the revised voters list.  The ability to make changes to the voters list, up to and including election day, provides the best possible list.

9

Voters need to be able to complete their voting in the language of their choice.

If the language of choice is know in advance, a mail-in kit will need to be printed and mailed in a language specific voter kit.

Voter has the ability to select their language of choice on their selected method of voting either on the phone or on the internet.

10

Candidates are entitled to receive voter participation information indicating which voters have completed their voting.

Election officials are often required to provide regularly printed voter lists and updates to candidates. This process is often labour intensive and expensive.

Candidates are given electronic access to the electors list for their particular district/ward and can view the status of voter activity online.  It is important to note that the candidate cannot see how a voter has voted, only that they have participated in the election.  This satisfies the requirement for providing candidates with updates and it does so with no additional labour costs to the election.