Government under pressure on e-voting

THE Government will be pressed tonight to clarify the legal status of the nationwide roll-out of electronic voting.

Last night, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern defended the introduction of e-voting amid yet more accusations that the system cannot be trusted.

Ahead of a debate in Dáil Éireann calling for the deferral of the introduction of electronic voting, Mr Ahern said the system was reliable and had proved itself in past elections.

"In any voting system, people want to have confidence in the reliability of the system. I haven't seen any hard evidence that there is a problem," he said.

While admitting that he was not an expert, Mr Ahern said that as the largest exporter of software in the world, there was substantial expertise available in the country.

Tonight, Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party will join together to condemn the Government's hasty introduction of the system, without consultation with or the agreement of other parties.

The three opposition parties are also calling for the establishment of an independent Electoral Commission to roll-out e-voting, and a paper audit trail.

The Cabinet is expected to be briefed by the Attorney General this morning on the legal mechanism required to bring in electronic voting.

The Cabinet is to agree a strategy to counteract the opposition's motion, but a Government spokesperson said the AG's office is still looking at the legal standing in the context of the Carrickmines decision by the High Court. This decision placed a major question mark over the use of Ministerial orders the means through which the Government currently plans to legally introduce e-voting.

Whether or not a final decision is taken on the legal format to be used, in the absence of the Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen, Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy will robustly defend the Government's handling of the introduction of the system.

Also yesterday, the developer of the e-voting system to be used in this country said it was trustworthy and secure.

Powervote UK managing director Roy Loudon rejected reports doubting the reliability of the system.

"There is a lot of misinformation circulating in relation to electronic voting. Suggestions that no electronic voting system can be trusted is simply not true and does not take into account the fact that there is different hardware, software, security protocols and procedures and different accreditation processes involved with the range of systems on the market," he said.