The Government has defended the Bill to introduce State-wide electronic voting against claims by Labour that the legislation is unconstitutional.
The Bill published yesterday will set up the Commission on Electronic Voting as a statutory body and empower the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, to push ahead with the roll-out of the system for the local and European elections on June 11th.
It also clears the way for the publication of detailed information on vote transfer patterns in individual electoral areas.
The Bill was initiated by the Government after the High Court ruled in January that secondary legislation such as Ministerial orders or regulations could not be used to amend primary legislation.
But Labour's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, immediately claimed the Bill replicated this problem by empowering the Minister to trigger use of the system by Ministerial order.
Claiming that the Bill should be immediately withdrawn, Mr Gilmore said this should be set out in the legislation itself.
He claimed that a study of the safety and transparency of the system by the Commission on Electronic Voting was effectively a "sham" because the Bill will have become law by the time the commission reports in May.
"The Minister, who is the Fianna Fáil director of elections, is now introducing legislation to give himself critical powers to decide how the election is to be conducted. This should not be tolerated in any democracy," he said. "The idea that we can have it out of the tubes by Easter so that Martin Cullen can play PlayStation in June is not a runner."
A spokesman for Mr Cullen said the Government was happy to place the Bill before the Oireachtas and noted it had been scrutinised by the office of the Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady SC.
"The Bill will be debated in the Dáil. If proposals come forward which we believe improve the Bill we'll consider them," he said.
The Bill says the same counting rules will apply to the electronic system as did under the manual system.
It says the outcome of an election cannot be questioned in the courts due to any failure by returning officers to provide statements confirming no votes have been cast at the beginning of the poll or confirming the number of votes cast on the machine at end of the poll. Similar provisions apply in respect of referendums.
In addition, the Bill empowers the Minister to publish "detailed information on the votes cast" on a specified proportion of the poll.
Such information will be used by strategists in the same way as party tallymen record support for their candidates as boxes in individual electoral areas are emptied.
While the reference to "detailed information" suggests that publication of more than first preference vote patterns will be allowed, this was not specified in the Bill.
The inclusion of second or third preference votes would provide more information than tallymen, as they generally record only the first vote preference patterns.
The Bill says returning officers "may" decide not to allow publication of such information if the number of votes cast was limited.
Mr Gilmore said it was "constitutionally improper" to allow the returning officer decide whether such information should be published.
The returning officer could decide to publish the information even in very small electoral areas, he said. "There should be an objective threshold for non-publication."
Fine Gael's environment spokesman, Mr Bernard Allen, said the Bill did not address the need for a paper audit trail and it did not allow the disclosure of the source code of the system to independent scrutineers.
"The Government's ongoing refusal to engage with the public and the Opposition on key questions surrounding the system will continue to undermine the credibility of the electoral process," he said.
The Bill was also criticised by the environment spokesman for the Greens, Mr Ciaran Cuffe. "The checks and safeguards acquired through over a century of paper voting will be wiped away by the push of a 'cast vote' button," he said. "There is no sign of a paper trail in the legislation."
Main Points
Minister empowered to order use of electronic voting in all constituencies
Same counting rules to apply in electronic voting system as for manual system
Sets up Commission for Electronic Voting on a statutory basis
Commission to report by May 1st on secrecy and accuracy of system
Minister empowered to order publication of detailed information on number of votes cast
Confirmation required that no votes have been cast before poll opens
Confirmation required of number of votes cast at end of
poll
