The problems some registered Liberals are having with online voting in the party’s leadership race shouldn’t be a surprise and may even be a good thing, say some experts.
“You can’t have a wide open, hardly at all verified process for selecting the prime minister of Canada,” Christopher Cochrane, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, told CBC News.
Cochrane points out that when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won the Liberal leadership in 2013, it wasn’t only party members casting their ballots. A new class of supporters could register to vote without paying a membership fee.
Cochrane said that system made sense when the Liberals were the third party in the House of Commons and they needed to build out their list of supporters. But today, the threat of foreign interference combined with the fact that the leadership contest will select the next prime minister means the game has changed.
“It is absurd to have a massively open, loose process, picking the prime minister of Canada. And the Liberals know that,” Cochrane said.
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, commissioner of the public inquiry into foreign interference, warned that party leadership races were a vulnerability in her final report regarding the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
She issued a number of recommendations, including the need to verify a leadership voter’s citizenship or permanent residency status and apply the Canada Elections Act to leadership contests.
“It’s likely that the enhanced security measures in this race is directly related to the foreign interference issues that have plagued Canadian elections in the last several years,” Chris Alcantara, a political science professor at Western University, told CBC News.
The complicated process
To vote in this race, registered Liberals must get an electronic voter ID, then verify that ID online. They then have to confirm their status as an eligible voter. After that they must then confirm their identity using the Canada Post Identity+ app or in person at a participating post office. Once that is done, members can cast their online vote.
But dozens of people have now written to CBC News saying they have been unable to get the process to work, particularly when it comes to the mobile app and in-person option to verify their identity.
“In programming, each step you add obviously creates a potential for an error, mistake or dysfunction and that’s a multi-step, very complicated process,” Cochrane said.
Mark Carney, the front-runner in the race, has joked about the process at different campaign events, but has aligned with the party on the issue of security.
“We take security seriously,” he told a crowd during a recent campaign stop. “We do not want any chance of foreign interference in this election.”
A spokesperson for the Liberal Party told CBC News that they could not comment on individuals who may have written to CBC News with complaints.
“This is actually the system working. If you’re not able to verify, there’s a reason you are not able to verify,” the spokesperson said.
“We want to make sure that we are putting on a process that is secure and fair.”
So far, more than 127,000 registered Liberals have been verified to vote in the race and 105,000 have cast their ballot. Voting began Feb. 26 at 8 a.m. ET and closes March 9 at 3 p.m ET.
Stewart Prest, a lecturer in political science at the University of British Columbia, said Canadian political parties have the tough task of trying to hold a leadership election that meets two related standards: prevent interference and don’t disenfranchise voters.
“Politically speaking it’s the more dangerous criticism that there are those who are ineligible to vote who are taking part in the electoral process,” Prest told CBC News.
“There is a sufficient public good in ensuring that political parties are choosing leaders reliably and in a way that is free of interference but also maximizes accessibility of the vote.”
Building a stronger process
These experts say people will increasingly struggle to use evolving technologies and political parties need to make sure they are able to ensure they can run fair elections.
Prest said parties may be more willing to take criticism that their voting was overly secure, disenfranchising some voters, than for letting unqualified people vote. But he argues that position is not sustainable.
“Parties are ultimately going to need to find ways to build leadership voting processes that either match Elections Canada standards or indeed are built in co-operation with Elections Canada, because that is the gold standard for the country,” he said.
Cochrane says that the frustration some registered Liberals are feeling was inevitable, but the results of this race will likely satisfy the party.
“As long as their diehard supporters are the ones that are coming out and incurring all of those costs to vote for their candidate, they will probably end up with the leader that the base wants,” Cochrane said.
