Vol. 550 No. 1
21 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the proposed arrangements for the use of electronic voting in three constituencies in the next general election; the procedures which will be put in place before the election to familiarise voters with the new system; the back-up system which will be in place in case of technical difficulties emerging on election day; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6961/02]
The Government has recently agreed to my proposals for the use of the electronic voting and vote counting system in the constituencies of Dublin North, Dublin West and Meath at the forthcoming general election, subject to satisfactory final testing of the software involved. The Electoral (Amendment) Act, 2001, provides for the possibility of such voting subject to a ministerial order which I intend to make in relation to the arrangements now envisaged. The system comprises a voting machine and election management and PR-STV count software. The elections in the three constituencies will be conducted by the respective returning officers.
Voters will register in the normal way at the polling station and will then record their preferences on a ballot paper displayed on a voting machine by pressing the space beside the candidate's photograph. This replaces the practice of marking the ballot paper with a pencil. When the voter is satisfied with the preferences, he or she presses the Cast Vote button. The votes will be securely stored in vote modules, which will be brought to the count centre after the close of the poll. The votes will be counted electronically using the PR-STV count software and results should be available within two hours of the last vote module being received.
While the system is simple to use, an information campaign will be undertaken in each of the three constituencies. This will involve the distribution of an information leaflet to each registered elector, a poster campaign, local radio advertising, a travelling roadshow with the voting machine and a number of other measures. In addition, training of returning officers and their election staff will be undertaken in the run up to the polls.
The system has undergone extensive testing, including independent testing of the voting machine in Germany and Holland and an architectural and code review of the software by an Irish company. The Department and a number of returning officers have tested the voting machines for functionality and the count software has been similarly tested for functionality and accuracy in the implementation of the count rules. However, in the event of difficulties arising on polling day, there will be a range of back-up measures in operation depending on the particular difficulty that may arise. These include the use of spare voting machines should a machine malfunction; battery back-up in the event of a power failure; the availability of a back-up vote module should the original be mislaid in transit to the count centre and comprehensive technical support from the company.
22 Mr. McDowell asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government when he expects to publish the Bill to provide an alternative to deposits for election candidates; the number of persons who will be required to sign a nomination form; the conditions that may be attached; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6971/02]
The Government approved the text of a Bill on 26 February 2002 to provide for an alternative to deposits following the High Court decision in the Redmond case. The Bill, which will be published shortly, will provide that non-party candidates at European, Dáil, and local elections will be required to obtain the signatures of 60, 30 and 15 respectively registered electors in the constituency or local electoral area, as assentors to the nomination. Candidates who are nominated by a registered political party and who have a certificate of political affiliation from their political party will not have to obtain signatures on their nomination papers. Details of the procedures for assenting the nomination forms will be set out in the Bill.
