Madam, - Cathal Mooney's letter (August 15th) taking me to task for raising questions about the proposed change to electronic voting confirms my worst suspicions.
He advises me to study the technology currently available. Then he gives me a blast of "point to point circuits" and "encryption algorithms".
Ordinary yobs like me know nothing about these things and are totally dependent on people like Cathal Mooney to operate these systems.
Some of us think, however, that the electoral system is fine the way it is. The blunt pencil and the ballot paper are cheaper and more accessible than any electronic system. In the case of disputes they can be checked by ordinary people without the investigation having to be mediated by experts in the specific technology used.
The new technology may indeed, as Cathal Mooney assures us, be at least as secure and transparent as the current system. But on the other hand it may not and ordinary people have no way of checking it.
So why spend large sums, in this time of scarce public resources, setting up a new less accessible system that, Cathal Mooney admits, needs back up auxiliary power when the existing accessible system, that does not need any power at all, is working satisfactorily.
If it is not broken, why fix it? - Yours, etc.,
A. LEAVY, Shielmartin Drive, Dublin 13.