Friday, March 3, 2017 3 Brooklin Town Crier Special Report: Whatever Happened To Internet Voting? By Richard Bercuson There will be no internet voting in the 2018 municipal election. While that's old news, the process leading to the demise of the online option is both interesting and perhaps informative. A year ago, Whitby council chose to dip its toes into what became a somewhat controversial voting method, using internet and telephone as the principal means of electing the next Ward One councillor. A ripple of events that led to the June by-election began with another one. On February 11, 2016, Lorne Coe won the Whitby-Oshawa provincial by-election, thus stepping out of his Whitby and Durham regional councillor seats and into one in Queen's Park. His vacant spot on regional council was then taken by Derrick Gleed who had to vacate his North Ward position, one he'd been appointed to in 2013 when Tracy Hanson became head of Whitby's Chamber of Commerce. A by-election was called for June. Rhonda Mulcahy won the week-long election, garnering 36% of the 5379 votes cast, with her closest opponent managing 21%. After researching alternative voting methods, town staff brought to council last March a recommendation to use internet and telephone voting. On March 21, 2016, a motion was put forth by Councillor Chris Leahy and seconded by Councillor Derrick Gleed that Council accept the staff recommendation to use alternate voting methods for the June, 2016, by-election as a pilot project. Here's why: 1 - The Town of Whitby has had a contract with Dominion Voting Systems since the 2010 election year. Dominion Voting provides services to help run elections at various levels. Dominion Voting was prepared to provide Whitby its services for online voting in 2018 at the same cost as for 2014. 2 - In 2014, a number of Ontario municipalities hired an independent auditor, Digital Boundary Group of London, Ontario, to provide technical expertise in examining potential issues in using online voting. Digital pointed out a few minor security issues which were resolved. That year, dozens of Ontario municipalities used an online voting system with no security breaches reported. 3 - Early in 2016, Town of Whitby staff conducted further research and audits, using Whitby's internal IT people as well, and found no problems with the system. This was the foundation of the staff report to council to try online voting in June. Last September, Town staff provided council with its report and findings from the June by-election. It concluded that council should indeed go ahead with online voting again for the 2018 municipal election. The report showed how voter turnout in June was 29% versus 25.77% in 2014 with 4,664 electors voting using the internet and 725 by telephone. Those not wanting to use either method or for those where there were issues regarding votings lists and the like were able to access Voter Assistance Centres at the Brooklin Library and McKinney Centre throughout the week. Surveys done Electors were able to complete a post-election survey about the process, the results of which were compared with surveys done of 43 Ontario municipalities using online methods after the 2014 election. Comments were overwhelmingly positive about online voting. The few negative comments concerned voter packages, getting names on the voting list and related problems. Of 119 Ontario municipalities surveyed after the 2014 election, 97 used online voting with 88% expressing satisfaction and 56% stating they'd use it in 2018. With the staff report in hand, council had to decide at its Dec. 12, 2016, meeting whether or not to use a similar approach for 2018. After all council members commented, the vote came out a tie and thus the motion to use online voting for 2018 was defeated. For: Mayor Don Mitchell, Councillors Joe Drumm, Rhonda Mulcahy, and Elizabeth Roy They made the following comments at the Dec. 12 council meeting: 98% satisfaction among Brooklin voters says a lot Concerns are more theoretical than real and haven't been realized A big problem was the voter list We're taking a step back without a lot of information Get Involved: Local Service Clubs Always Need Volunteers By Richard Bercuson Anyone who claims there's little to do in Brooklin outside work and family hasn't looked around much. For a relatively new community, in terms of recent growth anyway, there's a wide array of groups and clubs one can join to be involved in just about anything. You like organizing? Fundraising? Helping youth? Keeping a watchful eye on the neighbourhood? Addressing local needs? Working with the disadvantaged or those with illnesses such as Alzheimer's? Local service clubs are where to be. Recently, some of them met at the Brooklin Pub, the second year they've come together to update each other on their work. Among them was the Brooklin Agricultural Society, celebrating its 105th anniversary this year. The name is misleading. Its biggest role is to organize the annual Brooklin Spring Fair, a mammoth undertaking that begins days after the previous one is cleaned up. The group has 24 directors, 12 of whom are over the age of 40 and 12 under. The Fair's budget is well into six figures and involves hundreds of volunteers, including a few dozen high school students earning credit towards their community service hours requirement. In fact, this year's fair is in dire need of individuals to organize and run the parking lot. The Society says it works with a number of other local groups to make the fair run, such as the Brooklin Oddfellows who've been the fair's gatekeepers for 50 years, the Optimist club, and the BAM (Brooklin-Ashburn-Myrtle) Lions. The Lions group also collects and recycles eyeglasses in addition to its adopt-a-road program and work with the annual Artfest event in Grass Park. Effie Coughlan, president of The Brooklin Optimist Club, describes her group as "friends of youth." She adds, "We aim to bring out the best in kids." To that end, they run twice monthly youth dances at the Brooklin Community Centre, sometimes with as many as 450 kids from grades 5-8 in attendance. The Optimists donated $100 k to the centre for upgrades, money that came from extensive fundraising and event charges. They stay in touch with high school guidance counsellors in helping their students obtain service hours. This group also takes charge of the Breakfast with Santa, Christmas sleigh ride, and Easter egg hunt events. Danielle Harder, a journalism professor at Durham College, spoke on behalf of the local Rotary Club, which that night at the pub was collecting personal hygiene products for Joanne's House, a youth housing and homeless shelter in Ajax. Whereas food banks do a wonderful job in their field, a key component of living includes having sundries like toothpaste and shampoo. "You can't really go to a job interview or such," Harder said, "without looking and feeling clean." Rotarians are collecting toiletries to place in what's known as shelter boxes, containers with about $1200 worth of goods to help youths survive. Aside from the toiletries, a shelter box provides blankets, groundsheets, cooking utensils, a small tool kit and other necessary "survival" items. There was, as well, the Alzheimer's Society of Durham Region whose stated goal, according to Christie May, is to improve the quality of life of those living with this horrible disease. About 10,000 people in Durham Region have dementia, a figure that's expected to grow as over 1 in 5 persons over age 65 nationally will be diagnosed with dementia-related illnesses. 100womenbrooklin.com alzheimer.ca/durham brooklinoptimist.org brooklinspringfair.com e-clubhouse.org/sites/ brooklin_ashburn_myrtle/ group74.org rotarywhitby.org Royal Canadian Legion Branch 152 (Brooklin) continued on page 10