03/03/2004

Archived item. This item is published here for historical reasons. The information below may be out of date.

 Statement By Minister Martin Cullen Td On Electronic Voting

'There have been many constructive contributions to the debate on electronic voting. Regrettably however there have also been several ill-informed contributions. Sometimes this is a result of people simply not having done their homework. In other cases it is mischief making and attention seeking. In the interests of clarity I would like to make the following points:

Contrary to some claims, the up front costs for the introduction of electronic voting are €43 million including VAT. While cost savings have not been our primary concern, it is expected that substantial savings will be made in electoral administration, particularly surrounding the count procedures. The vast bulk of the expenditure on this project is a once-off capital expenditure to purchase the voting machines, which have a life-span of some 20 years. .

The integrity of the new electronic system has been vigorously tested by six independent, internationally accredited test institutes:

• Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), the German institute which tested the voting machine software, confirming that it performs all the tasks required and that it has sufficient internal checks to identify any attempted interference.
• Nathean Technologies, an Irish software firm, undertook an architectural code review of the election software and concluded that the code does not contain elements which can corrupt the correct running of the software.
• The Electoral Reform Society in the UK tested the PR STV (Single Transferable Vote) count rules against the 400+ STV elections in their database to ensure that the rules have been precisely applied.
• Zerflow Information Security Ltd undertook a rigorous security assessment of the system and confirmed that the measures introduced following the initial pilot elections have addressed any concerns they have with the system.
• Kema Quality BV (accredited by Dutch Council for accreditation) examined and certified the physical voting machine components.
• TNO, the Dutch Electronic Products and Services company tested the voting machine and supporting equipment for compliance with international standards for environmental conditions (such as temperature, humidity, power supply voltage and interruptions, electromagnetic compatibility, insulation, energy consumption and transportation).

In response to claims that Microsoft Access is not a suitable application for counting the votes, the Department has received expert advice on this issue from Nathean Technologies who reviewed the use of Microsoft Access in stand-alone security-hardened computers for the counting of votes and certified that it is fit for use in the elections. Furthermore, the election management system being used in Ireland has also been used in Holland and Germany with no problems and is also being adopted in France.

It is also worth noting that the votes stored in the ballot modules will be intact and kept by the returning officers for a period of six months. If so ordered by the Courts, all the votes cast in the election can be printed out and counted manually.

The people elected should be the people with the most votes at the end of the count. With the Irish electoral system, seats can be decided by the smallest of differences. Indeed, at the last General Election, seats in 18 constituencies were decided by less than the number of spoiled votes. Similarly, there were 40 local electoral areas where councillors were elected by less than 50 votes. At the last Local and European Elections, 70,000 people who took the time to go and vote had their votes declared invalid.

This is a system which can end the problem of inadvertent spoiled votes and make sure that our elections are more accurate and therefore more democratic.

The system is also being introduced as it is an easier method for voters to cast their votes, it counts votes more accurately and more speedily and it will improve electoral administration.

Our democracy is strengthened by vigorous debate. I would suggest that it is not too much to ask that this debate be informed and wild claims be subject to the scrutiny they deserve.