Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Online voting would make the process of voting for Shane Cassells or anybody else in Meath West even simpler. It would also be a recognition of the reality of the world in which we live. It would help younger people to engage with the democratic process. Young people are accessing information on online portals and there is an opportunity to use the same medium to allow them to vote. If we consistently resist online voting and use experiences from past elections that did not embrace technology in the best way, we will never make progress. The Minister of State said there is an opportunity to improve the electoral register. We should use that opportunity to introduce online voting. As I said, if Estonia, a small Baltic nation with a small population, can embrace this process, as it has since 2005, surely Ireland also has an opportunity to do so. There will be a series of elections next year and we could potentially trial this process in a number of constituencies.

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