Government in denial about evote system failure

IF the only real reason for turning down evoting machines was to accommodate people who count at elections, Maurice Fitzgerald (Letters, June 17) would be right on the use of the machines.

The Government’s own commission said, however, that without a voter-verified paper printout, there was no way of “resolving any doubt in an electronic voting result”.

The commission, therefore, concluded that “this creates the potential for the legitimacy of the system to be undermined”.

The Government’s own commission has declared that, with the chosen evoting system, it is impossible to verify that the votes counted were the votes cast. Unless and until that is remedied those with access to the machines could write the result of any future election and no-one would ever know.

The most alarming thing about this is that Government spokespersons are in denial that such is the case. In addition, they deliberately excluded verification from the terms of reference of their own commission.

Contrary to Mr Fitzgerald’s contention, therefore, there is more at stake than saving “worthless, time-consuming bureaucracy”.

Anthony Leavy

1 Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13