Cullen1.0 program is always right

SMALL but perfectly formed. Very powerful. Always 100% accurate. Tested under the most arduous laboratory conditions including bombardments from cosmic rays, hackers, Bernard Allen and Eamon Gilmore.

And still programmed to prove conclusively that they are wrong and he is right.

Yes, a most impressive machine is Martin Cullen, the kind of minister that doesn't leave verifiable paper trails in his wake.

A few weeks ago, Cullen was preparing to embark on a planet-saving trip to Malaysia for 10 days, confident he had closed the door on the electronic voting debate. His preferred method of political discourse is a nuanced technique known to hurling trainers as 'play away lads and don't worry about the ball'.

On the eve of departing for the Far East, the Environment Minister gave a classic performance on RTÉ's Six-One news with a withering dismissal of Fine Gael and Labour's objections to e-voting. All they were up to, he argued, was mischievous "politicking".

But it seems others in the Cabinet aren't running the same powerful virus-protection programmes as the opposition-proof and PD-proof Cullen. In his absence, a worm of doubt had inveigled itself into the heart of the system. Within days, there was complete systemic failure as the firewall was breached by rogue viruses. Within the space of a couple of days, the Government had made four key concessions. Only two related to opposition demands but, from Cullen's perspective, 10,000 miles away in Malaysia, it was the equivalent of the hard disk being erased.

The kind of 'uisce faoi thalamh' stuff that the media was getting was the Government was aware of public concern over the matter and was moving to restore confidence in the system. There was even an expectation the Government might decide to postpone the e40 million system until after the June elections.

However, the prospect of a humiliating climbdown didn't take one important factor into account. And that was the sponsoring minister who was at that moment in time on his way back from the Far East. The irreplaceable Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins archly described the embarrassing situation Cullen had been landed in: "While the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, was getting the hang of his chopsticks in exotic locations last week we hope he did not fumble as badly over the chopsticks as he has on electronic voting."

Fumble is not a word that has been programmed into Cullen's operating system. Nor is concession. His presentation of his 'clear views' and 'proposals' to Cabinet last Tuesday was "forceful bordering on very forceful", according to one observer. His hard line held sway.

That evening, all criticism was batted away by the minister when he briefed reporters. E-voting would go ahead in June. Voters would not be allowed to deliberately spoil their votes. Primary legislation would be brought before the Dáil and passed through the House in time for the elections. An independent commission would be set up by the Government.

Its role would be to verify the accuracy of the system. There would be no paper trail. The committee would have sufficient time to test the system. Nor would he brook criticism of the awarding of part of the e4.5m public awareness campaign to the PR firm, Q4, described by the opposition as "friends of Fianna Fáil".

The next day, Cullen embarked on a round of TV and radio interviews defending the e40m system. The only dent in the escutcheon for this aggressive counter-attack was Junior Minister Noel Ahern's appearance on the Vincent Browne Show. Cheerfully admitting to Browne (licking his chops in a vulpine manner at this stage) that he knew nothing about computers and didn't listen to experts, there was only one outcome for Bertie's older brother. Lambs and slaughter are the words that come to mind.

Not so the senior minister. This column has referred before to Cullen's acumen as a rhetorical street fighter. I know it's a bit blasé to compare him with a computer, but like his beloved e-voting machines the minister always works under the premise that he is never wrong. While radio talk shows aren't totally reliable indicators of public sentiment, the volume of emails that arrived in during the week demonstrated considerable public disquiet. The minister remains steadfastly inured to all criticism.

But yet, the controversy has refused to fade away. Most of the debate has focused on the lack of a parallel audit trail. One of the minister's stock responses to that was to rattle out the line: 70,000 lines of code have been tested. That is incredible, he said as if 1) that meant anything to anybody and 2) it proved beyond doubt the system was reliable, which it didn't.

One of the most risible U-turns that Cullen steered through was that in relation to the spoiling of votes. The previous week, the impression was given that voters who wanted to spoil their votes would now be able to do so. Even on Questions and Answers last Monday night, Michael McDowell was describing spoiling of votes in terms of being a citizen's right.

But now, Cullen was saying it wasn't possible. He cited as evidence the fact that only 1% of votes that are spoiled are deliberate. Of course, that is based only on Cullen's own observations and not on any empirical evidence.

It may sound like a relatively minor point but the provision of a button that allows a citizen to choose 'none of the above' should be regarded as a fundamental right. For sure, what you might call the "Dustin the Turkey" button might lead to more spoiled votes but that's not necessarily a bad thing. A 10% spoiled vote in a European election, for example, would hammer home the message that efforts to make Europe more relevant are patently failing many citizens. But, like the minister, this system is just not programmed that way.