Town considers paperless 2010 election - Northumberland Today - Ontario, CA

Town considers paperless 2010 election - Northumberland Today - Ontario, CA:

A completely paperless system may be used when town residents vote for their municipal council and school board representatives next year.

Cobourg Mayor Peter Delanty anticipates upwards of 55% of electors would vote in 2010, up from 44.91% in 2006 when the town used a combination of paper ballots at polling stations and electronic voting. The election before that, which used only paper ballots, realized voter turnout of 36.47%.

'Getting over 50% (voter turnout in 2010) would be superb, if we could get that,' Delanty said.

As in the last municipal election, Intelivote Systems Inc. of Nova Scotia would provide the electronic voting service, which can be used over the telephone or Internet. Each person would be given a personal identification number with which to vote and, once used to complete the entire voting choices, it cannot be used again. Also as in 2006, people can start their voting on the telephone and complete it at a later time, or use the Internet, or vice versa.