Severe flaws in logistics and technology threatened the integrity of the online vote in Ontario's 2022 municipal elections, a major new study suggests — and points to vulnerabilities across voting systems supplied by different vendors that left 70 per cent of races at "high or extreme risk" of compromise.
The research was conducted by a group of academics from Brock, Carleton and Western universities, all of which specialize in computer engineering, cryptography and political science.
Their study found two core security failures: the first, a logistical flaw that turned discarding a voter's unique login PIN into an invitation for fraud. The other was a technical vulnerability found across multiple vendor systems that risked secretly hijacking up to a million online ballots on election night.
The findings highlight the tradeoff of digital voting, showing how the drive for convenience and accessibility can undermine an election's integrity if cybersecurity is
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