Will the machines deliver a landslide?

WHY are Bertie and his gang getting so worked up over accusations of dishonesty, or worse? Haven't they been accused of that for years and it hasn't knocked a feather out of them?

Still, the vote goes to the root of democracy and without complete transparency in the new electronic system, we could be in for a shock in a few years if it was discovered that, after all, there was a secret, embedded programme which gave the result Fáilers 1, Others 0 regardless of which buttons the voter pressed.

Easily done when the programme access code is known only to a carefully selected few. What might Bertie's reaction be to such a revelation?

"I didn't know about it personally, so it does not count" or "it's a minor technical detail I had no control over because votin' has to be secret" or "dat was din, and dis is now: we'll deal wit it goin forward".

It worries me that Bertie stumbled last week over the term 'good governance'. He is learning a lot from George W Bush, and weren't there allegations of cooked books in Florida four years ago? Let's hope that it's not books that are cooked in June, but Bertie's goose.

Kevin T Finn,

King's Square,

Mitchelstown,

Co Cork.