Govt stages climbdown over e-voting

The Government has made a number of changes to its plans to introduce electronic voting nationwide at the local and European elections in June.

The changes were announced last night as the Dáil debated an opposition motion calling for the system to be deferred until an independent electoral commission had been established to oversee it.

The proposed changes include the establishment of an independent panel to verify the security of the electronic voting system in advance of this year’s elections.

The panel would also monitor the operation of the voting machines and the counting of the votes in all future elections.

Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Green Party have rejected the proposed amendments and said their concerns would only be met if a paper record of every vote was issued to enable verification of the electronic result.