The next municipal election is still over a year away — on Monday, October 26, 2026 — but Thorold City Hall is already getting organized.
During last night’s city council meeting, staff asked council members to sign off on the parameters and voting methods of the 2026 municipal election — but council is divided on whether or not to allow online voting.
“When people question the integrity of the process we can run into problems,” said Councillor Anthony Longo. “I think we need to make sure this is airtight.”
During the 2022 municipal election, for the first time ever, Thorold residents were able cast their ballot online, but the process wasn’t without controversy.
Some residents received multiple ballots in the mail and there were voter cards sent out to people who were already deceased.
That’s reason enough for some council members to ban online voting altogether in the next municipal election.
“I know for a fact that I saw three voting cards last election that were for people that had died years ago,” said Councillor Carmen DeRose. “I know it’s more work for staff, but just the integrity of it — I don’t have confidence in it. I think security can be breached and I want people to feel confident that their vote is going to count and that it is all legit.”
Councillor Jim Handley agreed and he quoted a 2022 ThoroldToday interview with Aleksander Essex, who is an associate professor of software engineering at Western University.
“Right now, if a company was to behave fraudulently and declare a fake result, how would you find out?” Essex told ThoroldToday, at the time. “We are trusting these companies to produce these results. Trusting a third party private company is not appropriate for an election result.”
But other councillors believe that online voting is the way of the future.
“I had nobody tell me there were any problems,” said Councillor Ken Sentance. “I had many people come up to me to say thank you. I can’t imagine how low our turnout had been if we didn’t have it.”
In the 2022 municipal election, Thorold had the lowest voter turnout — 24.99 per cent — in all of Niagara.
But according to City Clerk Nicholas Debono, there were still a lot of Thorold residents who voted online in that election.
“40.7 per cent of the votes cast by Thorold eligible electors was by internet,” he told council members last night.
According to Debono, there should be less hiccups in the next municipal election because the province will be taking care of the voter list.
“In the past, it was MPAC who was responsible for compiling a list,” he said. “There were some who brought concerns about that. It’s transitioned over to the province who will be taking it on. The hope is that perhaps the list will be improved.”
And when it comes to online voting, it is impossible for a voter to commit fraud, stressed Debono.
“Obviously there’s different vendors out there but their method of removing a person from the list once they’ve voted electronically is instantaneous,” he said.
But councillors still had questions. Like, why does Canada allow online voting in its municipal elections but not in its federal and provincial elections.
“Is there a reason why municipalities can handle this task but a federal or provincial government can’t?” asked Councillor Longo. “I guess we’re the guinea pigs.”
In the end, a recorded vote was held with Councillors Mike De Divitiis, DeRose, Longo and Handley voting against online voting.
Councillors Nella Dekker, Henry D’Angela, Tim O’Hare, Sentance and Mayor Terry Ugulini voted in favour — and thus Thorold residents will be able to vote online in the 2026 municipal election.
