Voter declined to vote on behalf of deceased spouse says the mayor

Heather Wright/The Independent

Plympton-Wyoming officials are warning voters violations of the Election Act have serious consequences after the town learned someone cast a ballot for a family member who had recently died.

In an email Tuesday, obtained by The Independent, Clerk Erin Kwarciak said staff became aware of the incident in Friday afternoon and contacted the local OPP to help with the investigation, as laid out in the town’s election policies and procedures.

Kwarciak gave few details about what actually happened saying “the investigation is now closed and it was confirmed that no votes were cast for any candidate.”

Sources tell The Independent the ballot was marked as declined to vote.

In the leaked email, the clerk says the town “takes this matter very seriously.”

Kwarciak did not explicitly confirm the details of the email for The Independent, saying only that “Following the Municipal Elections Act and the Town’s Policies and Procedures an investigation was completed involving the OPP and is now closed.”

“The Town is confident in the voting system and can assure voters there was no fraud and the integrity of the election has been maintained,” she said, adding further details could not be released.

Mayor Gary Atkinson who was briefed by staff, says a resident went online with their deceased partner’s voter information and declined to vote.

The resident, he said, when contacted by the town and police was embarrassed to have caused concern.

The incident comes as voting in the municipal election is well underway. Residents have been able to cast ballots online since Oct. 16 with town employees helping those who are concerned about voting on line at their office in Wyoming.

Friday’s incident in Plympton-Wyoming reflects concerns raised by researchers from Brock, Carleton and Western Universities during the 2022 elections.

The academics flagged two risks to online voting; multiple voting vendors that put municipalities at risk for hackers swooping into the system and seizing votes and the fraudulent use of voter cards which may have been discarded at post offices across Ontario.

James Brunet is a lecturer at Carleton University’s faculty of engineering and design and was part of the study.

He says the Plympton-Wyoming investigation shows the system does work to stop voter fraud, but that the verification system for online voters is not strong enough.

“I think it does still reveal a potential issue where someone might vote for another household member,” Brunet tells The Independent. “And there’s ways where that wouldn’t be immediately obvious… With a deceased person, there might be an obituary, the city might have a source for people who have died, and they can update the voters list accordingly, but imagine you’re in a household where you have children who’ve gone off to university in another city but might have voted when they were 18-years -old in high school, so they’ll get a voter card … so a parent could vote on behalf of their child.”

Brunet using only a pin number and a date of birth is not secure enough. He prefers a method like is found in Estonia where people have a national identity card, similar to a bank card, which can be plugged into a computer and, with the pin number, can be used to vote.

“That’s a stronger form of proving your identity because you’re told not to share that pin with other people…which is different than your birthday, right? That’s not a secret, people wish you happy birthday.”

Plympton-Wyoming worked with nine other municipalities in Lambton and hired Simply Voting to oversee the online voting process in the region. The contract costs the municipality $4.53 per voter to send out voter cards and to over see the vote.

Simply Voting administered elections in 50 municipalities in 2022.

When the contract was approved at Petrolia Council a year ago, Clerk Mandi Pearson, assured council of the security of the system saying “once the elector votes, the software ‘strikes’ them off the list to eliminate any duplicate voting.”

Meantime, online today, while other municipalities were sharing voter turnout numbers, Plympton-Wyoming said the town is “committed to administering a fair, transparent” election on its social media page.

And the town warned voters that “Ontario’s municipal election rules are in place to protect a fair, accessible, and trusted process for everyone,” and “Election offences can result in serious consequences, including fines of up to $25,000, ineligibility to vote or run in the next regular election, and/or up to six months in prison.”