http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=27006
The
Chronicle-Journal
Thunder Bay,
Canada
Cases stated
for manual vote count
By Stephanie
MacLellan - The Chronicle-Journal
May 05, 2005
Residents
who came to a town hall meeting Wednesday about the way municipal election
ballots are counted wanted guarantees against vote tampering, lower election
costs and more information about the machines that count votes in Thunder Bay.
The city has
used electronic voting machines for the past three elections, but they have
come under fire from the public for the last year and a half after concerns
about technical glitches in the November 2003 election.
One
candidate from that election, Eric Leat, brought an appeal to have the ballots
counted manually to the Superior Court, but his appeal was denied.
More
recently, Coun. Lawrence Timko called on city administration to return to
manual counting.
About 60
people attended Wednesday’s meeting, moderated by Timko.
At least
three residents who spoke were defeated candidates from the last municipal
election, including former councillor Orville Santa.
Santa said
it cost more than $100,000 less to run the last municipal election in Sault
Ste. Marie, which uses manual voting, compared to Thunder Bay. But city
solicitor Rosalie Evans disputed his figures, saying it wasn’t clear if the
same costs were included in both sets of numbers.
Santa
questioned the transparency of an election where scrutineers couldn’t examine
physical ballots.
“If the
process is corrupted, people may not believe in the council that’s elected, and
that’s a terrible blight,” he said.
Nathan
Hewitson, a deputy returning officer in the federal election, echoed his
comments. That election relied on manual voting.
“Scrutineers
get to see every ballot,” Hewitson said. “They can keep a tally of their own,
and walk out with complete confidence in the vote.”
Several
people expressed concerns that the machines could be programmed to alter vote
results.
Evans
conceded that the counting machines could, in theory, be programmed, but said
city staff don’t get the source code needed to alter programming.
John Buetow
was more concerned with getting statistics about the machines, like how
accurate they are.
“I don’t see
why anybody in Nebraska (where the company that designs and programs the
machines is based) would be interested in supporting one candidate over another
in the City of Thunder Bay,” he said. “I want facts and figures. We can’t
re-run the last election.”
Evans said
the city clerk’s office is looking at other electronic voting machines to
replace the current ones, but has not yet reached any conclusions that would
prompt the purchase of new ones.
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2004 The Chronicle-Journal
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