Electronic voting: French Government seeks success where Irish failed

THE cousins of Ireland’s maligned electronic voting machines were tried for the first time in a French election yesterday.

The same model of machine brought to Ireland for €52 million registered the votes for more than a million French citizens.

Some 80% of the machines controversially introduced for the presidential election were the Dutch NEDAP model. Their use sparked a similar debate to the one prompted by the decommissioning of the Irish machines in 2004.

France pressed on with the trial on 5% of the electorate despite stunts by hackers in Holland undermining NEDAP security.

Their use comes as the Department of the Environment is moving Ireland’s machines to a single site after renovating an air hangar at Gormanstown military base in Co Meath. To do this the Government has to negotiate a buy-out of leases where some machines are stored by individual county councils.