San Francisco Internet voting

By a unanimous 6-0 vote, on April 19, 2017 the San Francisco Elections Commission recommended against Internet voting at all levels of government:

RESOLVED, That it be the policy of the Elections Commission to oppose allowing votes in United States local, state, and federal elections to be cast over the internet, including by email.

See San Francisco Elections Commission – Resolution on Internet Voting (PDF)

Canadian reports recommending against Internet voting

Internet voting has been studied.  Again and again.  Any time there is a comprehensive study, it recommends against online voting.

Here are the Canadian federal and provincial reports:

• New Brunswick (A pathway to an inclusive democracy) – 2017
• Government of Canada (Strengthening Democracy In Canada: Principles, Process And Public Engagement For Electoral Reform) – 2016
• Prince Edward Island (Considerations for Applying E-Voting Options [Internet voting] in Canadian Public Elections – Independent Technical Panel on Voting Integrity) – 2016
• British Columbia (Independent Panel on Internet Voting) – 2014
• Ontario (Alternative Voting Technologies Report) – 2013
• Nova Scotia (Internet and Telephone Voting in Nova Scotia) – 2012
• Quebec (Evaluation Report of the New Methods of Voting that were Used during the Municipal Elections of November 2005 / Élections municipales de novembre 2005 : Rapport d’évaluation des nouveaux mécanismes de votation) – 2006

I can’t list every municipality, but here are a few municipal reports as well:

• Toronto (EX20.5 – Changes to the Municipal Elections Act and Related Matters Impacting the 2018 Election – Part B – Voting Technology) – 2016
• Waterloo (CORP2016-105 Alternative Voting Methods (Internet Voting)) – 2016

I don’t know how many times you have to study the exact same thing, year after year, decade after decade, before you eventually agree with the conclusion that we should not implement Internet voting.  Apparently many times.

It is very unfortunate that both Ontario and Nova Scotia, having investigated and rejected Internet voting at the provincial level, have left it to individual municipalities to decide whether to adopt Internet voting municipally, without any briefing or guidance or standards.  Basically municipalities are left to google and decide.  If the provinces had set even basic requirements, such as an independent public security test of all Internet voting systems, things would have gone very differently.  (If you think having independent public security tests of the systems would have too much risk, it’s worth mentioning that even the US Department of Defence has an official “Hack the Pentagon” initiative.)