Town of Saint-Lazare has been selected to take part in the very first Internet voting trial in Quebec for the next municipal election, scheduled for 2025. Internet voting will be offered to electors in certain districts that the town will determine over the course of the year.

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This announcement follows a call for interest issued by Elections Québec in May 2023 to municipalities with populations of 20,000 or more. These more populous municipalities were targeted in particular because they have fewer unopposed elections, which ensures that the vote can be held.

A total of 21 municipalities responded to Elections Québec's call, and all were selected to take part in the project. The diversity of participating cities, in terms of administrative region and size, will provide a portrait of the use of Internet voting in different environments.

A cautious, gradual approach

Elections Québec is conducting this trial to assess the relevance of introducing Internet voting in Québec in order to facilitate access to voting.

"The approach is intended to be cautious and gradual: in fact, only the electorate of one or a few districts or boroughs in each participating city will be able to vote online. The chosen sectors should represent around 10% of each municipality's electorate.In all, up to 300,000 people in Quebec will be able to vote online. These people will be able to choose to vote in person rather than by Internet, if they so wish, since all the usual ways of voting will be maintained," we read in a press release issued this Wednesday by Élections Québec.

Although Élections Québec is coordinating this first test, municipal elections are the responsibility of municipal returning officers. Centralized coordination is intended to ensure a uniform experience from one city to the next, and to exercise rigorous control over compliance with requirements relating to the security, reliability and accessibility of the voting solution.

For this pilot project to go ahead, an agreement will have to be signed between each participating city, Elections Québec and the Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation, which is responsible for applying the Act respecting elections and referendums in municipalities.

A secure Internet voting solution

In this first experiment, Élections Québec will use an Internet voting solution designed by a specialized company. A call for tenders was issued on October 16, 2023 to find an experienced supplier.

The name of the chosen company will be announced by summer 2024, following a rigorous selection process. The chosen solution will have to meet over a hundred requirements. It will also have to pass a test bench and safety audits.