All of Canada uses a pencil or pen to mark a sheet of paper, which is then fed into an electronic counting machine. That way there’s a paper record of every single vote, showing exactly what the voter intended. The poll workers don’t touch the ballot from the moment they hand it to you to the moment it goes in the machine, so there’s never any question of impropriety. Afterwards the paper ballots are all hand counted and those counts are checked against the machines in case of any error (or sabotage). The whole process is fast, secure, and we have a result within an hour of polls closing. We use this for federal, provincial, and civic elections.
That’s the major reason. There’s a paper trail. If electronic voting infrastructure fails, it’s possible to completely lose a record of someone’s vote, and then how can you prove the vote in the beginning?
All of Canada uses a pencil or pen to mark a sheet of paper, which is then fed into an electronic counting machine. That way there’s a paper record of every single vote, showing exactly what the voter intended. The poll workers don’t touch the ballot from the moment they hand it to you to the moment it goes in the machine, so there’s never any question of impropriety. Afterwards the paper ballots are all hand counted and those counts are checked against the machines in case of any error (or sabotage). The whole process is fast, secure, and we have a result within an hour of polls closing. We use this for federal, provincial, and civic elections.
That’s the major reason. There’s a paper trail. If electronic voting infrastructure fails, it’s possible to completely lose a record of someone’s vote, and then how can you prove the vote in the beginning?