I’ve seen some questions and speculation circulating about online voting, election security, and the integrity of the 2026 Municipal Election.
I think those are reasonable things to ask about.
Elections are fundamental to our democracy, and voters should be able to understand how their vote is protected, who is responsible for the process, and what safeguards are in place.
So rather than relying on speculation, I did some digging.
Who is providing Scugog’s online voting system?
For the 2026 Municipal Election, Scugog is using Simply Voting, a Canadian company established in 2003 that specializes in online elections.
Simply Voting says its platform has been used for more than 110,000 electoral events and 17 million votes. It provides voting services to governments, political parties, universities, associations, and other organizations.
It is not a new company, or a system being used for the first time in municipal elections.
In fact, Simply Voting says it supported 50 Ontario municipalities in the 2022 municipal elections.
What about security?
This is where I think it’s important to separate “online voting has risks” from “online voting is corrupt.”
No technology should be described as completely immune from failure or attack. I would be very uncomfortable making that claim about any voting system - online or otherwise.
But Simply Voting does have several security measures in place.
According to the company and municipal election documentation:
🔹 Voter authentication is required before accessing a ballot.
🔹 Voters who bypass authentication or have already voted are denied access to the ballot.
🔹 One-vote-per-voter is guaranteed by marking electors as voted and storing the vote in a single transaction. Even if a voter submits the ballot simultaneously on several devices, this technology guarantees that only one vote is accepted.
🔹 Ballots are rigorously checked for validity before being accepted.
🔹 All administrator and voter activity is recorded with timestamp and IP address in an immutable log.
🔹 Voter information and ballot choices are stored separately, protecting the secrecy of the vote.
🔹 Ballots are encrypted.
🔹 Communication between the voter’s computer and our website is encrypted with TLS 1.3 and strong cipher suites to protect against current and future encryption attacks.
🔹 The entire voting system database is encrypted at rest using AES-256 encryption.
🔹 The system undergoes security scanning and penetration testing.
🔹 Simply Voting completed an independent SOC 2 Type I audit in 2025, examining its administration, online voting system and server infrastructure against security, availability and confidentiality criteria.
🔹 The company has also established a formal vulnerability disclosure program so security researchers can report potential vulnerabilities.
And there is another important safeguard: Scugog is not relying exclusively on internet voting. The Township has approved a hybrid election that includes both internet voting and paper ballots using optical vote tabulators.
According to Scugog, voters will be able to vote online from October 14 at 10:00 a.m. until October 26 at 8:00 p.m., or vote in person at designated voting locations.
What about other municipalities?
Simply Voting isn’t unique to Scugog.
For the 2026 municipal election, other Ontario municipalities using Simply Voting include:
- Clarington
- Ajax
- Cobourg
Simply Voting also identifies municipalities including:
- Belleville
- Quinte West
- Prince Edward County
- Brighton
What about Scugog’s previous election?
I understand why some residents may be cautious about online voting.
Scugog’s 2022 election used internet voting as one of its voting methods, and there were issues with the voting system during that election that affected the voting period. There’s an article currently circulating that talks about the Clerk declaring an emergency under the Municipal Elections Act.
To clarify, under Section 53 of the Municipal Elections Act:
s. 53 (1) The clerk may declare an emergency if he or she is of the opinion that circumstances have arisen that are likely to prevent the election being conducted in accordance with this Act. 1996, c. 32, Sched., s. 53 (1).(2) On declaring an emergency, the clerk shall make such arrangements as he or she considers advisable for the conduct of the election. 1996, c. 32, Sched., s. 53 (2).
On election night, the Clerk was informed that the system was experiencing issues processing ballots cast between 5:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. The issue was resolved, and the Clerk extended the time for voting to 9:30 p.m. as per section 53(2) to allow those who were told their ballots were not cast to be able to cast them properly.
Technology can glitch at any time, and under the best of circumstances. In my experience working the past two elections for the Town of Whitby, our computers would frequently lose connection or freeze because the system couldn’t handle all the election officials accessing the same database all at once – and we weren’t using online voting, only “vote anywhere” voting.
When it comes to Simply Voting, they use third party offsite monitoring tools to automatically monitor key “vital signs” of the voting system 24/7 and a technical staff member is immediately notified of any anomaly. Simply Voting also maintains a Hot Site at a backup data center in a different geographical area, so should the primary data center experience an outage, they can quickly redirect traffic of the entire voting system to the Hot Site, minimizing disruption to ongoing elections and avoiding any loss of data.
A technical failure is frustrating and absolutely deserves to be taken seriously.
But there is an important distinction:
A technical problem is not the same thing as evidence that votes were changed, lost, or manipulated.
Those are very different claims - and the latter requires evidence.
So, can we guarantee that nothing could ever go wrong?
No. And I don’t think anyone should tell you otherwise.
What we can do is ask whether there are appropriate safeguards, whether the process is administered independently, whether security controls exist, whether the system is tested, whether there are alternative ways to vote, and whether there are procedures for responding to problems.
Those are reasonable questions.
Claims of corruption without evidence are something else.
For me, this comes back to something I’ve talked about throughout this campaign:
Transparency and accountability matter.
If we want people to have confidence in our elections, they shouldn’t be expected to simply trust a municipality, a vendor, a candidate, or a Facebook post. They should be able to ask questions, look at the information, and make up their own minds based on facts.
That’s exactly what I’ve tried to do here.
If you have questions about how Scugog’s 2026 election will work, I encourage you to ask the Clerk and election staff directly. The Township’s Election Office can be reached at election@scugog.ca or 905-985-7346.
And regardless of how you choose to vote this October - please vote.
Sources & Further Reading:
Township of Scugog - 2026 Election & Voter Information