Why e-voting would have been a fiasco

THE real fiasco that would have resulted if the Government had got its way and used a flawed electronic voting system that has cost €52 million so far was revealed last night.

A second report from an independent body said tests on the software central to the system showed that: the wrong candidate was eliminated in some cases where votes were tied; the software could be manipulated to change the outcome of a vote; and design flaws inherent in the software could compromise the accuracy of an election.

This is the same system that the Government wanted to use in the 2004 local and European elections.

It was used on a pilot basis in three constituencies in the 2002 general election, and in seven constituencies in the second Nice referendum that same year.

When the opposition subsequently voiced fears about the security and reliability of the system, then Environment Minister Martin Cullen, whose department had responsibility for e-voting, dismissed them.

“All of the fears have been, in my view, allayed,” he said in February 2004.

However, the Government was forced to abandon its plan to use e-voting in that year’s elections after the independent Commission on Electronic Voting said it did not have requisite confidence in the system.

The machines have been mothballed ever since, with storage costs now running at almost €700,000 a year.

The commission issued a second report yesterday which contained both positive and negative news about the system.

The commission said it could recommend the use of the hardware — the e-voting machines which accounted for €46m of the €52m total cost — if some “minor security and usability enhancements” were made.

Crucially, however, the commission said it was unable to recommend the software used to count the votes and compute the results. Known as Election Management Software, it cost almost €500,000.

“The software is not of sufficient quality to enable its use to be confidently recommended,” it stated.

However, the commission said it was likely that replacement software could be developed “at a reasonable relative cost”.

The commission did not say what a “reasonable relative cost” would be. But experts suggested a figure starting at €2m and which could rise to €10m.