ABSTRACT
This paper examines the impact of two exogenous shocks – a 2018 technical incident that took place in Ontario, Canada, and the COVID-19 pandemic – on the administration of local elections in Ontario. Drawing upon survey and focus group data, this paper concludes that these two exogenous shocks affected the perception and adoption of online voting on the municipal level in differential ways. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic had a greater perceived effect upon the decision to adopt online voting than the 2018 technical incident. However, the perceived effects of the 2018 technical incident were just as likely to be felt in unaffected municipalities as they were in those that had been directly affected. Municipalities that had not used online voting in 2018 and medium-sized cities were more negatively affected by the 2018 technical incident. In contrast, the perceived effects of the COVID-19 pandemic did not hinge upon the previous use of online voting, city size, or the urban/rural divide. © 2022, The Author(s).