Due to technical issues in the last 3 hours of the voting period on Monday, October 22, the voting period has been extended to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 23.
At approximately 5:30 p.m. on October 22, staff at the Election Help Centre and voters across the Municipality started to report problems with accessing the online and telephone voting systems. At times, voting was possible but had extensive load-time delays, and at others the voting site was completely unavailable.
Following conference calls with Dominion Voting Systems, our service provider, and their other clients around the province, it became clear that the issue was not going to be quickly resolved.
Section 53 of the Municipal Elections Act gives the Clerk authority to declare an emergency “if circumstances have arisen that are likely to prevent the election being conducted in accordance with this Act”. The Clerk determined that in order to ensure that all Meaford residents had the opportunity to vote, it was appropriate to declare an emergency and extended the voting hours until 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 23, 2018.
Announcements were made to the voters waiting at our Help Centre, at Meaford Hall, via e-mail to candidates, on our website, through social media, and through a media release.
Voting will continue until 8:00 p.m. today, with the following help centers available to assist voters, provide access to computers, and continue to add voters to the voters list.
Municipal Office, 21 Trowbridge Street West – 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Sydenham Centre, 458372 Grey Road 11 – 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
The results announcement will take place at 8:15 p.m. tonight at Meaford Hall, and the unofficial results will also immediately be made available on our Social Media pages and website.
The official statement from Dominion Voting Systems outlining how the problem was caused is below. The bandwidth limit that caused the issue means no voter information was compromised, and that the integrity of the election has been maintained.
Statement from Dominion Voting Systems:
Dominion Voting Systems has issued the following statement regarding today’s Internet Voting Service slowdown affecting Ontario Municipal election customers:
Just after 6:00 PM ET this evening, voters in approximately 51 Ontario Municipalities using Dominion’s Internet Voting (IV) portal experienced slow traffic into the system. This load issue was documented, reviewed and determined to be the result of a Toronto-based Internet Colocation provider placing an unauthorized limit on incoming voting traffic that was roughly 1/10th of the system’s designated bandwidth. Our company was unaware of this issue until our municipal customers and their voters reached out to us for assistance, or to share complaints.
Once we became aware of the problem, Dominion was able to quickly identify the source of the issue and work with the provider to resolve all issues with the system service by 7:30 PM ET.
Unfortunately, the 90-minute slowdown and resulting bandwidth issue caused a varying number of voters to experience slow response times and system time-outs.
Given this issue was no fault of the voters who attempted to cast ballots during this time, some municipalities are extending voting hours for this election. Voters who were affected by this issue should check with their election office for more information on options that are available.
Dominion regrets the challenges that our system load issue posed for both election officials and voters alike in today’s elections. We appreciate the public’s patience in resolving this matter. We want to assure Ontario voters that we will work to ensure this problem does not occur in future elections. It is important to note that at no time was the integrity of the system at risk of compromise, or in any way insecure
source: media release, Municipality of Meaford
