Cyprian Brady (Fianna Fail)

I do not know how I will follow that contribution. I welcome the Minister of State to the House and welcome the opportunity todiscuss electronic voting. This issue was discussed at great length at the Joint Committee onEnvironment and Local Government. Many ofthe questions which have been asked werecomprehensively dealt with at that committee by the Minister, the Minister of State and their officials.

The thrust of the change to electronic voting is to make the process more accessible and accurate and, therefore, more democratic. I disagree with Senator Norris about the human element. As an unemployed tallyman, I know the human element will still exist in the system as proposed to ensure its accuracy. I welcome the eradication of the spoiled vote. The Minister stated that the electoral law was not introduced to enable people to spoil their votes. I remember being told by my grandparent that people fought and died for the privilege to vote in this country. That has been lost in the mists of time, but we must try to bear it in mind.

Those in the House who participated in the process of tallying and verifying votes at a count know that while the process may have been enjoyable, it was inefficient and archaic in many cases. Invalid votes have always been a problem. Some Members in both Houses have had the experience of losing a seat because of disputed votes. The new system will eradicate theseanomalies and ensure the accuracy of all the ballots.

Someone said we should approach this matter cautiously. If approaching this matter for six years does not represent caution, I do not know what does. If we were to wait the length of time advocated by some commentators, we would not get anything done and we would still be talking about it in six years time. The process of changing the system has been painstakingly undertaken.

This system has been in operation in a number of countries for the past 15 years. Germany and the Netherlands were mentioned.