People are singing the praises of electronic voting in the town of Truro, N.S.
Every single vote cast in the town’s municipal election was cast by computer or phone – leading to higher participation and earlier results.
Like every other voter in town, Margaret Kelly and Ethyl Farrell voted electronically with the help of a computer.
The two nursing home residents say the experience was surprisingly simple.
“Fairly easy…I thought it would be hard, as someone who never used a computer before,” says Ethyl Farrell.
“Not necessary to go out dressed up and go out in the cold and that. It was very simple in the one room,” says Margaret Kelly.
Nursing home manager Joanne Garron thinks the residents were impressed by the new online voting system.
“They were able to just press the screen, tick off their boxes and proceed. And I think for them it was…it showed them how simple life is with computers nowadays.”
“It’s not the way of the future. It’s the way it is today,” says Pearson.
Trurowas one of several municipalities in Nova Scotia to use electronic voting, but town council took it a step further, eliminating paper ballots altogether.
Initial results seem to suggest voter turnout was greatly improved.
Nearly 47 per cent of the 8,900 eligible voters cast a ballot, compared to 19 per cent four years ago.
Electronic voting also allowed the votes to be tallied quickly
“The polls closed at 7:00…we sent out our results to the candidates and to the media at 7:14,” says returning officer Jud Pearson.
Truro’s town council has yet to decide if electronic voting will be used in the next election four years from now, but based on this year’s results, it’s probably safe to assume councillors will give another thumbs up to e-voting.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh
