Electronic voting will be introduced in all constituencies for the European and local elections next year, the Minister of State for the Environment has confirmed.
Mr Pat "The Cope" Gallagher, who defended the electronic system, rejected allegations of arrogance and a "form of dictatorship" in purchasing an electronic voting system without talking to the Opposition about it.
Fine Gael's environment spokesman, Mr Bernard Allen, claimed that "a party that would fiddle around with the electoral system without consulting other parties, is going down the slippery road of dictatorship".
The new system will cost € 36 million plus VAT. Labour's spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore claimed that the system would effectively cost € 45 million.
Funding for services to people with disabilities had been cut, yet the Government was prepared to spend that amount of money "on a system of electronic voting which has been established as unsafe, unsecure, with no traceability, no transparency and which frankly is unnecessary". Mr Gilmore called for the Government to "cop on" and cancel the "scandalous waste of money" rolling out a system which would be "less transparent and less open to public accountability".
Mr Gallagher, however, defended the system as "modern". He said it meant an investment of about €1.5 million a year over 20 years and would result in greater efficiency and reduced staff costs over the lifetime of the system.
He promised that the Opposition parties would be fully briefed on the system in the autumn as would his own parliamentary party and he told Mr Gilmore it did "not necessarily follow" that if the system was not installed that the money would go to disability services.
Mr Gilmore asked about the report by two computer scientists in NUI Maynooth who suggested that the electronic system was potentially open to abuse and "threatens the integrity of democracy". Mr Gallagher said the new system would enhance the integrity and efficiency of the electoral system. He said the NUI Maynooth report restated points made in a security assessment, commissioned by the department and related to the "physical aspect of the machine in the polling station". He said the consultants, Zerflow, were happy that all concerns had been addressed.
The NUI Maynooth report also promoted the need for a paper ballot which could be retained in the voting machine and could be used in a later manual count. The Minister said that this could endanger the secrecy of the ballot, but the system "will print a ballot paper for each vote if required by a court order".
Mr Allen expressed concern that the security code for the system would be under the control of the company supplying it, but the Minister said they had asked for advice on the codes and were "quite satisfied" that the code review of the software would by done by a "private third party" for the election set-up and count.
