Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney made the comment following the tabling of a joint motion in the Dail, to be debated Tuesday or Wednesday, that calls on the government to immediately defer plans for the use of electronic voting in the European and local elections this summer. The motion also calls for a suspension of any further related expenditure on the proposed system until an independent electoral commission has been established to address the concerns of political parties and the public on the issue.
"It looks as if there is some movement on the government side in the last few hours," a Fine Gael spokesperson told ElectricNews.Net, responding to the Tanaiste's comment. "It is looking more positive than 12 hours ago, but we will just have to wait and see."
Meanwhile, a report dealing with the testing of voting machines that was cited by Minister for the Environment, Heritage & Local Government Martin Cullen does not give any assurances that the Nedap machines are suitable for use in elections in Ireland, according to the Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting (ICTE), an independent lobby group.
According to the ICTE, government reticence on the release of information relating to the introduction of e-voting is noticeable through the paucity of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
"In one case, over EUR1,200 of funds has been spent requesting documents under the FOI Act and appeals to the Information Commissioner, some of which are still on-going", noted ICTE representative Colm MacCarthaigh.
The Irish government plans to roll out e-voting nationwide for June's local and European elections. Joint UK and Dutch partnership Powervote has been charged with providing a secure electronic voting system. Some of those opposed to the e-voting plan have voiced concerns about the closed-source nature of the chosen software system and about the lack of a physical paper trail in the proposed system.
Quelle: Electric News Net, 17.02.2004
