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.