Hamilton City Council has approved the use of online voting for a Ward 4 by-election happening next year.

There is an English public school board trustee vacancy, and council is looking for ways to increase voter turnout, in addition to making voting more accessible.

Ward 4 Coun. Tammy Wang, who represents the region where online voting will be allowed, says this smaller election is an opportunity to test the system.

“I think this is a real opportunity to test [the system], to work out what the kinks really are,” Wang said.

Professor of political science at McMaster University, Peter Graefe, says this move is long overdue.

“Hamilton would be joining the majority of municipalities that as of 2022, had already adopted this, so it’s not likely they’ll have to invent this from scratch,” he said.

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One area of vulnerability that may have caused the delay in endorsing this move to online voting is the recent cybersecurity attack that hit the city.

The security breach impacted numerous city-run services, and put officials on high-alert.

But, Graefe says this is not something that should prevent Hamilton from adopting the online voting system.

“The amount of skill and resources you’d need to really hack one of these systems is too great for the benefits one might get from winning a ward election in the City of Hamilton,” he said.

As of now, council has only approved the idea of online voting.

The next step is to determine if this is possible to implement prior to next year’s by-election.

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