I must confess that I’ve always loved elections. I just can’t get enough of democracy in action: rallies, speeches, debates, knocking on doors, arguments, endless, endless arguments. Plonk me down in front of the TV when there’s an election on and I’ll be as happy as a junkie with a big bag of smack. Most of all though, I love Irish single transferable vote (STV) elections. The transfers, the intra-party battles, the tallymen, the recounts – this is political drama at its best. It’s best to be there at the count yourself to get a full flavour of the event but, if you can’t make it, there are hours of coverage on TV and radio.
So it was with little short of horror that I learned of the Irish government’s decision to introduce electronic voting for June’s local and European elections. Instead of the timeless ballot paper and big old black box, voters will select their candidate through touch-screen technology. The results will be known within seconds of the polls closing. The new system will not only be far quicker, it will also save on labour costs as the hordes of vote counters become as obsolete as Betamax. No count centres, no hours of rumour and speculation, no drama, no craic at all. The whole process will be about as exciting as doing your weekly shop
Sentimentalist and election anorak that I am, that’s not the main reason I’m against e-voting. The real problem is trust. As opposition parties in Ireland have pointed out, the proposed new system leaves no paper trail. Once the voter has logged their preference they must essentially take the government at its word that the votes will be counted fairly. There will be no way of knowing for sure that this is the case. No computer system is 100% safe and accurate. It’s possible that, whether by accident or design, the votes could be miscounted. If the votes are inaccurately recorded, how are we ever to know? Even if the system works perfectly all the time, the air of suspicion will always hang over the process.
Why change the system at all? So what if it takes a day or two to count the votes? It’s not as if the country grinds to a halt every time there’s an election count. The old system, ponderous and archaic as it is, is fair and transparent. Vote counting is not a human activity in which speed is vital. What is vital for the health of any democracy is that the process of counting votes is fair and is seen to be fair. The Irish public, who have little faith in their politicians’ honesty, must at least have confidence in the voting system itself.