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BY SURJIT SINGH FLORA

In the current Ontario PC leadership race, the province’s Punjabi community is possibly playing one of the biggest roles in the vote.

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But there’s a debate now raging over the complicated process of voting in this leadership.

It’s a two-step process to protect both the party and member identity from any hacking. The first step is to upload photo ID online, whereupon the computer will generate a special code that will be delivered to your email account.

Most people are either afraid to upload their IDs, concerned about sending them out into cyberspace, or they do not have the ability to do it. Many in the Punjabi community who are members of the party and in the 50-70 age cohort come from Third World countries that don’t even have email. Because of this problem, voter turnout from this community may be very low.

More than 20,000 Ontario PC members reside in Brampton East, but only less than 300 members had voted at the time of this writing. Because of these problems, the online voting date was extended.