To the Editor,
Re: Online voting makes sense, Letters, Oct. 30.
How do you make online voting secure and maintain a secret ballot? If you trade stock or input your tax information online, there is an electronic trail of the transaction. You can either check online that your information was registered correctly or you receive a printout of the statement. With a secret ballot there is no such trail to check. If the White House, the Pentagon and Target can be hacked, why would you think Nanaimo’s municipal voting system would be immune? I worked in the computer industry for more than 34 years and there is no such thing as a totally secure system. It’s a sad day for democracy when citizens feel having to get off their duffs to vote every four years is asking too much.
S.I. PetersenNanaimo
To the Editor,
Re: Online voting makes sense, Letters, Oct. 30.
Online voting requires a lot of fine tuning before it is considered secure.
As a veteran and an octogenarian I am amazed how our democracy means so little that one cannot find the time to get off their butts and go vote. Especially when you are allowed time from work without loss of pay.
There are still many who are not computer literate and this applies to the senior citizens who are really the most conscientious voters of all and are aware that the price we pay for a democratic environment means you have to go to a polling station and mark an ‘X.’
There is not a bit of proof that online voting would increase the vote.
The values of a democracy must come from the parents and the teachers and not the click of a mouse.
Gardo D. GurrNanaimo
To the Editor,
Re: Online voting makes sense, Letters, Oct. 30.
Why can’t we vote online?
The simple answer is, without a paper trail, how does anyone know that a vote cast will be recorded as intended? And, how does one conduct a ballot recount?
Yes, the Internet provides us with the ability to bank and pay taxes online, with compromised security never being an issue, right?
And if some are truly concerned about the state of democracy in Canada, they need first to distinguish the difference between referendums and elections, between processes of inclusion in governance and those of exclusion from governance. For, if Canada were the democracy many purport it to be, every time everyone turned on CPAC they would see themselves, and everyone else, involved in the processes of their governance -- and not among the majority excluded from parliament, legislature and city hall. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Parliaments are spectator affairs, some members of which find its stage uncomfortable when playing without a large cadre of obliging electors in the gallery.
Want to re-connect with voters? Don’t exclude them from their own governance.
David S. DunawaySouth Wellington