Paper ballots protect against hacks, but other election cyberthreats loom
OTTAWA — As the potential for cyberattacks to undermine the democratic process becomes alarmingly clear, Canadians can take some comfort in the fact that national elections in this country are still conducted the old-fashioned way.
Canada is not immune to cybermischief aimed at suppressing the number of people who vote or manipulating how they vote. But once ballots are cast, not even the most sophisticated cyberattack could tamper with the results.
That’s because Canada still relies on paper ballots, hand-marked by voters and hand-counted by officials in some 25,000 different polling stations across the country, under the watchful eye of scrutineers from each of the major political parties.
“It’s highly decentralized and it’s paper-based so documents can be verified easily afterwards,” says Marc Mayrand, Canada’s chief electoral officer until his retirement just over a year ago.