Voting in the Ontario 2022 provincial election

For official information, please see Elections Ontario https://www.elections.on.ca/

Election day is June 2, 2022.

You can vote by special ballot, which enables you to vote by mail or drop off the special ballot, but you must register for the special ballot.  You will need to upload an image of an Ontario driver’s licence or an electronic copy of a piece of ID showing your name and current residential address.  The could have mentioned the Ontario Photo Card, which is the main ID alternative for people who choose not to have a driver’s license.

See https://www.elections.on.ca/en/voting-in-ontario/how-to-vote.html and the section Vote by Mail.

The deadline to apply to vote by mail is 6 PM (Eastern Time) on May 27, 2022.

You don’t actually have to send it through the mail.  You can drop the special ballot off at your returning office.  (But if you want to do that, be aware you can just vote in person at the returning office anyway.)  You can find the returning office using https://voterinformationservice.elections.on.ca/en/election/search?mode=electoralDistrict

The interface for voter information is pretty confusing.  You need to get your electoral district, then there’s a side menu that isn’t clear that it is a side menu (none of the items are in blue or underlined).  You need to select “Contact Your Returning Office” to find out where your returning office is.

It’s a judgment call about uploading your ID, you have to trust IT and the organisation, but we already trust some of that IT and all of that organisation.  There is no other way to vote by mail.

There is an Elections Ontario app but you cannot use it to vote online.  There is no online voting in the 2022 Ontario provincial election.

You can also vote:

• At the returning office itself until the day before the election, from May 5 until June 1 at 6pm Eastern.  The returning office is typically open seven days a week.
• At advance voting locations, on advance voting days between May 19 and May 28, from 10am to 8pm Eastern time.

Ontario provincial ballots are mostly computer scanned and computer counted.  For more information see previous blog post 2018 Ontario Provincial Election to use vote counting computers.

Following a much needed recommendation calling for standards and certification for elections technology (as there are currently literally none), Elections Ontario created an Advisory Committee on Standards for Voting Technologies, which from the webpage looks like it held its first meeting December 8, 2021.  None of its work will apply to the current election.

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