Electronic voting - Resistance to calls for paper trail baffling

THE Cabinet’s unwavering backing for electronic voting in next June’s local elections flies in the face of public unease about a system increasingly under question and widely perceived as flawed.

The Government’s stubborn refusal to allow for a paper audit, something that would satisfy voter doubts over recounts, smacks of a kind of arrogance that explains why people are so cynical about politics and politicians.

As Environment Minister Martin Cullen, the main proponent of e-voting, prepares to introduce legislation to underpin its legality in non-Dáil elections, people are perplexed by the Coalition’s inexplicable haste to foist e-voting on the electorate without waiting for serious questions to be resolved.

Even Fianna Fáil backbenchers are questioning the situation. And despite going into a state of deep denial yesterday, the PDs, including Tánaiste Mary Harney, Justice Minister Michael McDowell and the party’s youngest member, Fiona O’Malley, have also expressed reservations.

Notwithstanding the Government’s entrenchment, the debate shows that politics is alive and well in Ireland. At the end of the day, the controversy demonstrates how deeply Irish people value their democracy.

The last thing voters need is somebody dismantling a tried and trusted system just for the sake of it. They have long-demonstrated their political sophistication and intense involvement in the blood sport that PR becomes at election time. But there is more at stake here than the end of the tallyman or the loss of the nail-biting excitement of cliff-edge recounts.

The real issue is the total lack of a verifiable audit trail when this election goes ahead on June 11. People will have no difficulty taking e-voting on board. But what they find perplexing is the Government’s resistance to calls for a paper trail despite valid questions about the reliability of the equipment.

Even though the system is costing €44 million, with an additional €4.7m going into promoting e-voting, the spin doctors have failed to allay public disquiet about the blunderbuss tactics of the Government.

In the final analysis, the Coalition has answered neither public nor opposition concerns about e-voting. The Dutch programme may well be fool-proof, but the advantages of new technology will count for naught if voters lack confidence in the system.

The latest twist in the e-voting saga leaves questions hanging over the independent commission being set up specifically to assuage public doubts about the system.

The fact that it will be formed under the remit of Environment Minister Cullen, who is also Fianna Fáil’s Director of Elections, is bound to raise a possible conflict of interest scenario. There can be no denying the objectivity of the minister and the credibility of the Government will come into question.

It would be unthinkable to suggest the Coalition is trampling over public concerns about e-voting in order to save face and avoid even more political embarrassment. That would make a mockery of the democratic process.

Whatever the reality, this controversy will run and run and suspicions will haunt the Government long after the votes are counted.