No sign of online voting for Toronto, despite use in other GTA regions

Despite online voting now being an option in some surrounding regions like Ajax, Pickering and Markham, City of Toronto officials say they have no immediate plans to implement that method of voting in the city.

At a news conference Thursday, Deputy City Clerk Fiona Murray told reporters that the city's chief technology and information security officers have both said they don't believe online voting is a secure method of voting right now, and the city has "chosen to not use it for both security and accessibility reasons.

"We'll continue to research online voting as the years progress," she said.

The city is, however, lauding the fact that voters across the city are able to vote by mail this year for the first time in a general election.

The deadline for people to register to vote by mail is Friday at 4:30 p.m. More information can be found on the city's website.

Murray said about 20,000 people are registered to vote by mail right now, and she expects that number will rise to about 35,000 people by the deadline.

"We are fully confident in the security of the voting by mail process," City Clerk John Elvidge said.

Toronto is 15 days away from the start of advance polling and 32 days out from election day, Elvidge noted. Advance voting starts on Friday, Oct. 7 and runs until Friday, Oct. 14.

The city is also getting new vote counting equipment for this electionwith new security features, he said, which replaces equipment that was about 20 years old and was getting costly to maintain.

"We've been busy preparing for the 2022 election for some time," he said.