Paper ballots remain B.C.’s ‘gold standard’ in digital age

The answer, according to Elections BC, comes down largely to maintaining security and confidence in the electoral process.

“Elections BC has looked into the use of electronic balloting. However, for us in B.C., we found that using the paper ballots, as we have for almost 100 years in elections, is really the gold standard,” said Colleen Hildebrandt, senior communications officer with Elections BC.

Hildebrandt said paper provides both security and a means of verifying the vote.

Even when technology is involved in counting ballots, the original vote remains on paper.

“Even with our tabulators, those are paper ballots that go into tabulator machines. And with the hand count, those are paper ballots that go into the ballot boxes,” she said.

The issue is not a new one.

In 2018, Elections BC endorsed recommendations made by the Independent Panel on Internet Voting in 2014.

The panel recommended against implementing universal internet voting for other local or provincial government elections in B.C. at that time. It also recommended the province take a cautious, province-wide and coordinated approach to the issue.

Among its recommendations was the establishment of an independent technical committee, chaired by the Chief Electoral Officer, to evaluate internet voting systems and provide support to local jurisdictions interested in implementing internet voting.

Jason Morris, a political science lecturer at the University of Northern British Columbia, says moving voting online could have some significant benefits, particularly when it comes to accessibility.

“A rural and remote person wouldn’t have to travel to a place to vote. Someone with a disability or shift worker or military personnel could vote more easily,” Morris said.

He said online voting could also have appeal for younger voters who are accustomed to conducting much of their lives through technology.

But Morris cautions that casting a ballot online is not the same as banking through an app.

With banking, a customer’s identity and account are directly connected. An election, by contrast, relies on a secret ballot. That creates challenges in building a system that can establish a person’s eligibility to vote while maintaining the anonymity of their ballot.

It could also raise concerns about what happens outside the supervised environment of a polling place.

“There would be concern that if we just were able to vote on your iPad, that you could be pressured and we would never know about that,” Morris said.

Then there is cybersecurity.

“We’re concerned about what happens if there is malware or cybersecurity or foreign government attacks,” he said.

Morris points to a fundamental difference between the consequences of an attack on a financial institution and an attack on an election.

A bank, he said, may be able to return money to a customer who has been scammed. The consequences of a compromised election are far more difficult to reverse.

“We can’t really go back on a corrupt election,” he said.

Morris suggests a hybrid system could potentially be considered, particularly for people who have difficulty physically getting to a polling location. He also points to another possibility: taking voting services to people with mobile voting stations.

Elections BC says it already provides alternatives for people who have difficulty voting inside a polling location.

“If anyone has any issues accessing a voting location, they can vote by curb. You just have to let an elections official know,” Hildebrandt said.

Other options include assisted telephone voting for people who are unable to attend in person, as well as voting by mail.

The mail option can also help people who may be away from home, including those travelling or on vacation.

Those alternatives allow some voters to cast ballots without following the traditional process of entering a polling station. But they stop short of allowing British Columbians to open an app or website and cast a ballot from wherever they happen to be.

For now, Elections BC maintains that the paper ballot provides something increasingly important in a digital world: a physical record that can be checked and verified.

So while the way votes are counted may continue to include technology, the ballot itself remains decidedly low-tech.

And unless the province changes course, when British Columbians are next faced with both municipal and provincial elections, they can expect that voting will still involve something very familiar: a piece of paper.

by Cheryl Jahn

Paper ballots remain B.C.’s ‘gold standard’ in digital age

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