Electronic voting in next year's local and European Parliament elections must not be used unless major security fears are dealt with, the Labour Party has warned.
In a major escalation of the Opposition's campaign against the Government's plans, Labour TD Mr Eamon Gilmore warned that votes could be tampered with. "The Government plans to move lock, stock and barrel to this. It is the single biggest change in the country's electoral system since independence."
Seven thousand voting machines, made by Nedap with a a software package designed by Powervote, have been purchased for €36 million. However, Mr Gilmore said the machines have not been subject to the type of checks typically faced by other high-security equipment, such as air navigation and emergency medical equipment.
Mr Gilmore's criticisms were based upon a report compiled by two Labour members, Mr Robert Cochran and Mr Shane Hogan, who are both information technology specialists.
Electronic voting was used, without problems, in three constituencies, in Meath, Dublin North and Dublin West, in the May 2002 general election. The system was extended to four more constituencies, Dublin Mid West, Dublin South West, Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire, for the October 2002 Nice Treaty referendum. Again, there were no security problems.
The Nedap/Powervote system does not create a paper record of the vote cast. "The voter has no way of being certain that the vote which he/she casts is accurately recorded by the voting machine and software and is, thereafter, not over-ridden by a corruption of the count centre software," Mr Gilmore said.
The machine should print off a paper vote as the voter makes his choice electronically, so that a manual check can be done later if doubts exist about the integrity of the system.
"Strange things have happened in count centres down the years, but the paper record was always there to sort them out," said Mr Gilmore.
The Government could not go ahead with electronic voting in all 26 counties unless the Opposition was happy that the system was secure, and that voters believed it to be so, he said.
Labour's criticisms follow those last week from Fine Gael TD Mr Bernard Allen, who said the introduction of the system nationally could not go ahead without full consultation.
However, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Cullen, said the Labour report was "irresponsible and unfounded" and contained serious errors of fact.
"The system Ireland has used successively and will use next year is the most secure electronic system that exists in the world. At all stages, all aspects of electronic voting have been tested and re-tested by independent experts. My Department has engaged six independent consultancies to verify electronic voting. Labour has engaged two branch secretaries," he said.
The Government will begin a €1.5m six-month-long public information campaign from January next. TDs on the Oireachtas Environment Committee have been invited to a full demonstration of the machines.
A Department of the Environment official rejected the Labour Party's argument that the machine should make a paper copy of each vote, arguing that this would compromise each voter's right to cast their ballot in private.
