According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault announced that Elections Canada would introduce electronic voting lists and some of the information would be stored on foreign computer servers, with no details on security measures to prevent election fraud.. Electronic ballotingAll of Alberta’s advance vote was counted by electronic tabulators. .“Elections Canada will pilot the use of an electronic list of electors to support voting at any table in the designated polling location should a by-election occur in 2023,” Perrault wrote in a 2023-2024 departmental plan. .Under the current system, poll workers use a paper copy of the National Register of Electors..READ MORE Trudeau gov delays foreign agent registry for months.“This solution would improve services to voters by reducing wait times and help address the challenges of a diminishing workforce at the polls,” wrote Perrault. .“Our goal is to be in [a] position to deploy electronic lists more broadly in 2025.”.“Elections Canada will continue to make progress on its digital strategy,” wrote Perrault. .“Throughout 2023-2024, the agency will work toward modernizing its tools, services, and technologies. Notably, Elections Canada will invest in migrating data and applications to the cloud in order to increase the agency’s performance, agility, and flexibility.”.Some of the network servers will be located outside of Canada..READ MORE Liberal MP claims opposition parties made up Chinese election interference.The plan did not mention alleged widespread election fraud by foreign agents. .“We are unaware of efforts by foreign actors to undermine the ability of electors to vote,” Perrault testified last November 1 at the House Affairs committee..However, Perrault said his office did not investigate any leads on election interference..“I recognize it’s a challenge,” said Perrault..“How reasonable would it be to assume these kinds of things are happening so covertly we wouldn’t be aware?” asked Conservative MP Blaine Calkins (Red Deer-Lacombe, AB). . Elections CanadaCourtesy CBC .“It’s quite possible that some of that is happening and that is a matter of concern,” replied Perrault..Elections Canada beginning in 2016 sent contract notices to software developers “for a solution to support automation of the list of electors” including a scheme “in which electors may vote anywhere in the country” and all 15,500 polling stations nationwide used “a single national list of electors.”.No reason was given. MPs expressed unease with the proposal. .“I just don’t know what they’re driving at,” Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, QC), then-chair of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, said in an interview at the time. .“It is hard to say what Elections Canada has in mind.”.“It is certainly odd they would consider this,” said Green Party MP Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, BC), a former member of the Electoral Reform committee..“Considering the status of cybersecurity, your entire election could be hacked.”
