The London Beat London, Ontario’s stream of consciousness
For the first time in a provincial election in Ontario, voters will today use electronic voting machines. As voting begins to embrace technology, many Ontario electors today should expect to use e-poll books. The machines will only be in about 50 per cent of the voting locations, but will serve 90 per cent of the electorate.
The voters’ paper lists will be a thing of past in many places, replaced by an electronic version called an e-Poll Book. The new technology has been tested in previous byelections, and in a variety of municipal elections. Elections Ontario says the new technology will speed up both the voting and ballot-counting process.
Voters will receive a ballot from an official after having their registration card scanned. They will then fill it out and hand it back to the official, who will then put it through the tabulating machine.
While the new technology isn’t perfect and has experienced minor difficulties in the past, the advantages are still plentiful.
E-poll books provide access to real-time information concerning set-up and voting during the election. There is no need to call polling locations to determine voter turnout during the election and exact turnout reports can be generated, instead of just estimated.
Increased efficiency and accuracy are of obvious importance, but perhaps the biggest positive to the new voting system is in man power.
There were 76,000 polling officials working on election day in 2014, and with 17 new electoral districts added to the election map for this election, Elections Ontario estimated that it would have needed 100,000 polling officials with the old system. They cut that number almost in half, with only 55,000 polling officials working today.
