MPs reject electronic voting as Elections Canada explores future technology
https://www.westernstandard.news/news/mps-reject-electronic-voting-as-elections-canada-explores-future-technology/74309
Members of Parliament are warning against any move toward electronic voting after a Commons committee recommended Canada never allow ballots to be cast online or through virtual platforms.
Blacklock's Reporter says the House affairs committee issued the recommendation in a report examining special ballot voting, rejecting proposals that would permit Canadians to vote electronically in federal elections.
“The Government of Canada should not consider any measures which would see special ballots cast by electors electronically,” the committee stated in its report, Challenges Regarding Special Ballot Voting.
Special ballots include mail-in ballots and other voting methods used outside traditional polling stations.
The report comes after testimony from Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault, who suggested future governments may wish to examine new technologies for voting.
“Electronic voting was mentioned by some witnesses,” MPs wrote. “While some discussed instituting a ballot system that is entirely virtual, others described solutions pairing technology with other methods such as postal voting.”
Committee members specifically cited Perrault’s comments that modern telecommunications technology could eventually allow Canadians to vote remotely.
According to the report, Perrault suggested a voter could potentially participate in a teleconference, present identification and then be moved into a separate virtual room to cast a secret ballot.
“He noted that teleconference voting would not be allowed under the current legal framework,” the report stated. However, Perrault added that such a system “seems to me that it’s more rooted in the future.”
The committee's review followed the 2025 federal election, when more than 1.2 million Canadians cast special ballots, the highest number on record and nearly double the total recorded during the 2019 campaign.
While MPs rejected electronic voting, Elections Canada has spent years modernizing election administration through what it describes as a digital strategy.
In 2023, the agency introduced electronic voting lists for use by poll workers and returning offices, replacing some paper-based systems.
Perrault said the technology was intended to improve voter services, reduce wait times and address staffing shortages at polling stations.
“This solution would improve services to voters by reducing wait times and help address the challenges of a diminishing workforce at the polls,” he wrote in Elections Canada's 2023 departmental plan.
The agency has also explored broader digital modernization efforts. Since 2016, Elections Canada has sought software solutions to automate voter lists and support systems that could potentially allow electors to vote from anywhere in the country.
Those efforts have raised concerns among some parliamentarians.
Former electoral reform committee chair Francis Scarpaleggia previously questioned the direction of Elections Canada's modernization plans.
“I just don’t know what they’re driving at,” Scarpaleggia said at the time. “It is hard to say what Elections Canada has in mind.”
The committee’s report signals that, despite growing use of digital technology in election administration, MPs remain reluctant to extend those changes to the casting of ballots themselves.
