Major changes are to be made by the Department of the Environment to the State's electronic voting system, following teething troubles in the general election.
The system, which was used in three constituencies in May, is to be extended to four more - Dublin Mid-West, Dublin South, Dublin South West and Dún Laoghaire - for the upcoming Nice Treaty referendum.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said yesterday: "An exit poll taken as voters left the polling stations at the recent general election showed that 96 per cent of voters surveyed found the voting machine easy to use."
The system was criticised after the general election due to upsetting scenes when candidates such as Fine Gael's Mrs Nora Owen discovered that they had lost their Dáil seats only as the final result was declared.
Instead, the Minister said he intends to review the system to ensure that each count is declared separately, as happens now under the manual system, on large screens sited in each election count centre.
Screens would allow "everyone involved - candidates, voters and the media - to see results clearly: who is elected, who is eliminated, where transfers are going and the trends emerging", said Mr Cullen.
Describing the upset caused to Mrs Owen and other candidates as "pretty disastrous", the Minister said: "Nobody set out to cause that kind of grief for anyone. It is bad enough losing an election, than to lose it like that.
"There were some teething problems and circumstances where things could have been handled better. We are currently looking at how we can iron these out in advance of the Nice referendum," he said.
The recount battles in Cork South Central and Wicklow were further evidence for the need to end manual counting, he said. "Those involved indicated that electronic counting would have been welcome."
The addition of the four new constituencies to Dublin North, Dublin West and Meath will mean that over half a million people, or 18 per cent of all electors, will be able to vote Yes or No electronically on the Nice Treaty.
A publicity campaign will be run in the new constituencies before the poll to inform voters on how to use the voting machine. Further details about this campaign will be announced later.
However, he said the arrangements should be easier this time because voters will be faced with a simple Yes or No choice, rather than having to worry about voting for candidates in order of preference.
In the wake of Nice, the Minister will decide on whether the system should be extended nationally for the European and local elections in 2004. However, barring accidents, it is widely expected that this will happen.
However, he said he was unhappy that the system has reduced the amount of information available to tallymen, since no information is given on the results from each ballot box.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, as Attorney General, ruled that the voters' right to privacy in the ballot box would be infringed if such information were released.
"I don't happen to agree with him on that," said Mr Cullen.
"We are used to having tally figures available. It is valuable to candidates to see where their vote is coming from, and it helps to reflect local concerns if local voting patterns differ from the norm in a constituency," he told The Irish Times.
