THUNDER BAY – Internet and telephone voting is coming to Thunder Bay. There are almost 100 other communities who are using new technology to assist voters in casting their ballot.
City Council has made the move for online voting for the next civic election.
It is a bold step forward for Council that saw some of the members admit they are not all that tech-savvy. Thunder Bay becomes the 98th community in Ontario to adopt online voting. During the 2015 Civic Election, there were 97 communities which had electronic voting.
In a world where people are doing their banking online, doing their travel planning and purchasing airline tickets, and increasingly using the Internet, the move to online voting is a natural next step.
During the 2014 election campaign, Shuniah had exclusively online voting which allowed voters a ten day time frame to vote. The results were out quickly and there were no issues with the vote.
Thunder Bay election results were far slower coming out, and the computers all had issues as voters and candidates waited for hours to get the results.
For the 2018 election, voters will have a choice of online or telephone voting or voting in person.
