voting
Paperless voting system
a win for physicians
28
Dialogue Issue 4, 2014
photo: istockphoto.com
T
“I am thrilled that this paperless system has been met
he ease of online voting continues to
with so much enthusiasm. If online voting has encourencourage more eligible voters to particiaged more physicians to vote in a Council election
pate in Council elections. For the second
– and thereby participate in the regulation of the professtraight year, elections were conducted onsion – then it was a change worth making,”
line using an electronic ballot distributed
he said.
by email - and the process is being credited
Online voting was piloted in the 2013
with playing a big role for the rise in the
“We want to
district election and its success in terms of
number of votes cast.
cost, voter participation, and efficiency lead
Nearly 33% of eligible physicians voted
continue to
to the decision to employ the online voting
in District 5 – 7% more than the averlook at ways
system again in 2014.
age over the past five elections. And in
of making the
And, like the year before, a number of
Toronto – District 10 - 28% of eligible
voters in the recent election provided posivoters participated in the election, which
process even
tive feedback about the simplicity of the
is 5% higher than the average over the past
better”
online process.
six elections.
Dr. Gerace added that the College is comDr. Rocco Gerace, College Registrar, was
mitted to a continuous improvement of the elections
heartened by the numbers, noting that the level of parprocess to enhance efficiency and encourage particiticipation in the larger districts, like Districts 5 and 10,
pation. “Technological advances offer considerable
tends to be historically much lower than in the smaller
opportunity and we want to continue to look at ways of
districts. Nearly 36% of eligible voters participated in
making the process even better,” he said.
the Districts 1, 3 and 4 elections last year.