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Foreign interference could affect municipal elections, too. Here are 2 ways to reduce it
By Michael Murphy, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Political Science, Queen's University, Ontario,
7 days ago
Election integrity is back in the news as Canadian political party leaders react to an explosive report released by a top-secret parliamentary committee.
City, town, township and county councils are common forms of municipal government. Municipal governments touch the lives of all citizens because of the local services they provide, such as waste management , water treatment and snow clearing .
One important trend against this has been the growing importance of school boards in so-called “culture war” issues , which have been a flashpoint for online disinformation campaigns that seek to inflame tensions around election time. This can lead to further political polarization.
Despite the importance of municipal elections, they remain vulnerable. As noted above, the key people who make municipal elections work are not election professionals but instead public servants whose day-to-day responsibilities often involve many other tasks.
Especially in smaller municipalities, this means there’s limited capacity to investigate issues that arise during election campaigns. Often, complaint-driven processes are the only option.
A second issue that makes municipal elections vulnerable (in Ontario, Nova Scotia and the territories) is the prevalence of online voting. The security threats to online voting are well-established , and as electoral technology scholars Aleksander Essex and Nicole Goodman point out: “In Canada, no minimum cybersecurity standards or procurement guidance exist for election technology, including electronic voting.”
Historically, advocates for online voting have argued that the increased ease of voting would lead to better participation and a stronger democracy, despite the risks. However, recent research has debunked this argument . It found that in practice, municipalities see a novelty bump when online options are added, but it disappears in subsequent elections.
There are two years until municipal elections cycles will begin again in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. Now is the time for the province to safeguard the integrity of those elections.
Although some higher-level concerns around social media and misinformation fall more directly in the domain of the federal government, there are two ways the province can address the vulnerabilities created by low staffing and online voting:
It could establish an office of municipal electoral integrity within the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. This office could co-ordinate lessons learned from local elections taking place in 2024 (in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Yukon and parts of the Northwest Territories), 2025 (Alberta, Québec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and parts of the Northwest Territories), as well as earlier in 2026 (British Columbia and parts of Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories) to prepare understaffed elections offices and help them to troubleshoot problems as they emerge. The development of a permanent staffed election office (like Elections Canada or Elections Ontario) is unlikely to be feasible in many municipalities. As the Vancouver 2022 case highlighted, even large cities lack the capacity to investigate interference in real time .
The Ontario and Nova Scotia governments could introduce amendments to their Municipal Elections Act to pause online voting until cybersecurity concerns can be addressed. This would follow recent steps taken in Québec, which paused an online voting pilot project that would have taken place in the 2025 municipal elections . When we believed online voting would strengthen democracy by increasing participation, the risks may have been worth it. With the benefit of real-world research and heightening political tensions, online voting means all risk with no reward. Strengthening democracy today means a pause on online voting, at least for now.
Michael Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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