My article from today’s Sunday Business Post:
Fine Gael has accused Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of misleading the Dail about the cost of changing e-voting machines to bring them into line with recommendations made by the Commission on Electronic Voting.
Fergus O’Dowd, FG spokesman for Environment, Heritage and Local Government, said that Ahern ‘‘didn’t articulate the findings of the commission’’ and failed to give the full facts on the issue. During leaders questions on October 17, Ahern said that “[The Commission] was quite satisfied that the hardware can work and operate effectively,†and suggested that the only changes required where in the area of software, which would cost €500,000.
However the commission report highlighted a number of specific areas for improvement in the hardware, saying that changes ‘‘would be necessary in order to address these issues before the main hardware components of the system can confidently be used at elections in Ireland.â€
The report also detailed specific areas that required improvement such as user access controls and device authentication measures. O’Dowd expressed concern at the lack of independent scrutiny on e-voting since the commission was dissolved in September.
‘‘The commission is now gone, so who do we trust?†he said. ‘‘Any changes in the system need to be on an all-party basis and should be done by way of a commission. That’s where you get credibility and support.â€
A spokesman for the Department of Environment said that the government had no definitive costings for the recommended changes. He said the figure quoted by Ahern was ‘‘a suggested cost’’, but that he did not know who suggested it or where it came from.
Spokesmen from the Department of the Taoiseach said that the Taoiseach was speaking from a note supplied by the Department of the Environment, although he may have misspoke in Dail exchanges.
Joe McCarthy, an independent consultant with 30 years experience in the computer business and 20 years as an election agent, queried Ahern’s figures.
He cited the cost of modification to some of the machines three years ago as an example of the money required to make upgrades. ‘‘Previous adjustments to these machines for small changes cost €2,393 each.
“If the same price was applied for these more extensive modifications, one would be looking at a figure of over €17 million.â€
However, last July Henk Steentjes, chief technical officer of Nedap, the company that made the machines said any upgrade cost could be significant.
‘‘You have 7,000 identical machines, these are standalone units, and any change that is made has to be made 7,000 times,†he said.
Many thanks to Simon for bringing the issue to everyone’s attention, and for pointing me in the right direction when it came to finding out more. His post on evoting can be found here.