Quebec Ends E-Voting

Quebec’s chief electoral officer has suspended the use of e-voting machines in future municipal elections in the province. A report analyzing the use of the machines in last year’s municipal elections described several related problems: failure to fully test the machines; machines that misread ballots; conflicting vote counts; inadequately trained election staff; delayed results; and a 25 per cent higher cost than traditional voting methods. A representative of a firm that supplied the e-voting machines observed that the problems were partly due to the fact that all of Quebec’s municipal elections were being held on the same day for the first time, and to the popularity of e-voting. Overall, voter confidence was damaged, with many questioning the accuracy of last year’s Quebec election results.

This entry first appeared in the November 2, 2006 edition of lawsof.com. For a copy of the related article, click here.