THEY say a week is a long time in politics - but that long? Seven days after the votes have been cast, a gaggle of onlookers is still gathered around a table in a corner of the RDS in Dublin.
This is democracy at work, democracy with its sleeves rolled up, democracy checking all its nitty gritty details.
The election officials, the two anxious candidates, their scrutineers and lawyers and party faithful, have spent much of the past seven days leaning over the bundles of paper, counting and discounting, magnifying glasses in hand, arguing over the stamp traces, tags, pricks and pencil marks.
This is how our ballots are conducted at the end of the 20th century.
One of the two candidates, John Gormley, has suggested that computers should be used in the election process. The Green candidate (who eventually won the recount on Saturday) is already well aware of the practical realities entailed in introducing new technologies in local government - both as a former Lord Mayor of Dublin, and as the first public representative in Ireland to have an email address, several years ago.
But is this idea of voting by computer wishful thinking? And how much would it cost?
First, the technology for a digital election doesn't have to be invented - it already exists. Touchscreens could be installed in every counting centre, equipment that would be secure, private and easy to use.
Put the Irish count in a wider context and the organisational constraints don't seem that difficult either. Compare our situation in the 35 count centres across Ireland a week ago with the "election of the century". In South Africa in 1994 the electorate was to swell overnight from two million to 25 million people. Massive computer databases were required, to follow these millions of voters and 200,000 election officials. They were scrawled across 9,000 locations, from city centres to isolated bushlands.
As Erik Nilsson, one of the US software engineers who organised the system for the South African elections, put it at the time: "It was as if we were trying to build a nationwide banking system in six weeks, in a huge, politically unstable country where terrorist bombings are routine." It was like opening 9,000 branch offices all on one day, to run for four days, then shut down without losing anybody's money, Nilsson argued in Wired magazine.
An Irish election, by comparison, should be a doddle. But can afford a network of touch screen terminals, specially constructed each time for an election or referendum every four or five years?
Another option: piggyback onto existing major networks as the telephone system, the banks (imagine voting at a suitably modified ATM!) or the Lotto. The National Lottery's network has terminals in hundreds upon hundreds of shops and post offices across the country. Its scanning machines and central computers should be well able to handle ballot papers with 10 or 15 candidates instead of Lotto tickets with 42 numbers. Its system can handle 8,000 payslips a minute, and could be adapted to calculate the final results minutes after the election.
There would be objections, of course. If you could vote via a Lotto machine (or an ATM terminal or a TV zapper or a Web page), well, yes, we could have elections and referendums "at the drop of a hat". But would we? And if we did, would that be any less democratic than the current set up?
Another objection: instant results would destroy all the drama of the count. Maybe so, but let the tallymen watch the initial votes flitting past them (on computer monitors instead of bits of paper), and the Lotto and the broadcasters could always agree to insert a short delay before transmitting each round of results.
A Lotto election system would generate plenty of jokes. Ten and central computers should be well able to handle a ballot paper with 10 or 15 candidates instead of 42 numbers on a Lotto ticket.
The Lottery's system can handle 8,000 payslips a minute, and it should be well able to calculate the final results minutes after the election.
There would be objections to such a system, of course. If you could vote via a Lotto machine (or an ATM terminal or a TV zapper or a Web page), well, yes, we could have elections and referendums "at the drop of a hat". But would we? And if we did, would that be less democratic than the current setup?
Another objection is that instant results would destroy all the drama of the count. Maybe so, but the tallymen could still watch the initial votes flitting past them (on computer monitors instead of bits of paper), then the Lotto and the broadcasters could strike a deal to build in a short delay before transmitting each round of results.
A Lotto election system would itic, and to resolve the messy, unscientific process of counting ballot papers?
Despite all the hard work and diligence of the election officials, there is something alarming about the gaps which do occur between the original counts and the results of recounts. And now the gap between election day and the final result is beginning to stretch to more than a week.
While TV stations and Web sites used ever more sophisticated computers in their coverage of the 1997 election, the actual election process looks more and more archaic every time, with its tables and boxes, string and sealing wax, its sheafs of paper and pencil stubs.
Do we really deserve this system? Does this manual counting method from the past reflect the increasingly hitech future we are supposed to be moving towards?
At the end of the millennium, is the country ready to make this modest shift from paper and pens to digital bits?
Well, don't bet on it just yet.