Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I thank Deputy Kenny for sharing Fine Gael time on this joint Opposition motion. It is constructive that the issue of electronic voting which applies to every voter regardless of political view be dealt with on a cross-party basis. The former Minister of State at the then Department of the Environment and Local Government, Mr. Bobby Molloy, made it clear in the Seanad that a consensus was required if this system of electronic voting was to be agreed upon and was to enjoy the confidence of the public.

There are a number of technical issues relating to the Nedap-Powervote system which has been imported by the Government. Many IT professionals in Ireland and abroad have expressed concern about the system. These issues can be discussed later but I believe it would be more productive for the House to focus on the single solution to many of the problems and which has been adopted recently by the State of California.

The Nedap-Powervote system as proposed does not provide verifiability as the voter has no way of knowing whether the machine has recorded the vote as the voter intended. This is an important point as the voter must have complete faith in the accuracy of the vote recording and counting. Voters must have no doubts about the system and they must know that the system is foolproof.

The system used in the United States of America is not the same as the proposed system, but the example of the American presidential election in 2000 provides a lesson in what can happen and what could be the remedy. The electronic voting system in Precinct 216 in Velusia County in Florida, recorded that Al Gore had received minus 16,022 votes. Some 412 of the 583 registered voters had cast their votes but the computer system was showing 2,813 votes for George W. Bush, minus 16,022 for Al Gore and an even bigger negative vote for the Green candidate, Ralph Nader. The system used in Precinct 216 is similar to the system we use for the national lottery. The canvassing board was able to use a manual record of the votes cast for the recount. Such a recount, based on an original record of the voter's intention, is not possible under the Nedap-Powervote system. The Nedap-Powervote manual recount procedures are based on what the computer has recorded as the voter's intention, which is not the same thing.

The secretary of state in California, Mr. Kevin Shelley, announced recently that from 1 July 2005 counties will be unable to purchase voting machines that do not produce a paper trail. From July 2006, all voting machines will have to offer a voter verifiable paper audit trail, regardless of when they were purchased. California, which all Members will agree is the home of high technology, has been using automated voting systems for many years. It is incumbent on us, surely, to learn from its experiences, to avoid making the mistakes made there and to use state-of-the-art technology from the outset. Such technology will not be used in full in California until July 2006.

I would like to quote from the relevant comments of Mr. Warren Slocum, the elections chief of San Mateo county, after Mr. Shelley's announcement was made. He said that "election integrity is absolutely a fundamental requirement of our democracy" and that the voter verifiable paper audit trail "is one step toward strengthening that and giving voters confidence that their vote was handled by the computer in the way they wanted it to be handled". In response to other state election officials who said that providing paper receipts would increase the county's costs, Mr. Slocum replied:

Democracy ain't cheap. It's true we have a fiscal crisis and it's going to cost money, but what is the cost of blowing an election? What's the cost to the community to have a candidate who believes they lost an election because they believe the computer didn't count the votes correctly?

I am sure the Minister is aware that we know of 400 instances of votes not being counted correctly by the electronic system used in certain places in the second referendum on the Nice treaty. The electoral authority personnel in California, which is the home of Silicon Valley, have years of practical experience of using voting machines. When such people tell us that the system has flaws and that a manual record verified by the voter is a necessity, we should listen closely to them.

I accept that some minor issues will need to be resolved if the system I propose is to work. The argument that voter privacy will be compromised is a red herring and a bogus excuse. The handling of manual votes will be as private and as secure as the existing manual system that has served us well for decades. Given that other jurisdictions have succeeded in implementing voter verified e-voting systems, it is a fudge to say that it cannot be done. To say that it will mean a loss of privacy is a red herring and to say that there is no need for it is plain arrogance. When one speaks about privacy, it is important to remember that the paper system was never private for blind people, who had to bring somebody with them to the polling station to vote on their behalf. Despite the improved technology being used in the proposed e-voting system, it will not provide any additional privacy for blind people.

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