The national introduction of electronic voting for next year's local and European elections should be halted until the Government gives extra guarantees about the system's security, Fine Gael has demanded.
"Electronic voting must not go ahead without full consultations and security guarantees," said the party's environment and local government spokesman, Mr Bernard Allen.
"Reservations have been expressed about the security of the electronic system, even on the limited basis with which it was used in the last general election," said the Cork North Central TD.
The Oireachtas Environment and Local Government Committee has now agreed to hold hearings into the issue, and has requested that the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Cullen, appear before it.
The Minister has displayed "serious arrogance" to go ahead with the roll-out of the €40 million system in all local and European constituencies next June without offering such guarantees.
Mr Allen said the Minister has failed to consult properly with disability groups, who have already expressed concerns that the voting machines will not be available to people using wheelchairs. Electronic voting in Dáil Éireann has been found to be defective on a number of occasions, he said. "Manual votes had to take place because of machine failure. A system failure on election day would be disastrous," said Mr Allen.
Electronic voting was first used in the May 2002 general election in Meath, Dublin North and Dublin West. It was used in four more - Dublin Mid West, Dublin South West, Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire - during the second Nice Treaty referendum.
A study carried out for the Department of Environment and Local Government last year by a computer security company, Zerflow, raised some concerns.
The company warned that the voting machines could not properly protect ballots, while voters could be duped into voting for the wrong candidates.
Zerflow said it had copied the control keys for one machine at a local shopping centre. Keys should be abandoned and smart cards and PIN numbers used. If keys were kept in use, they should be sent separately from the machines, said Zerflow.
Last October, the Department said it had not accepted the complaints made by Zerflow, while the company itself had accepted that actions taken by the Department's franchise section had dealt with any concerns it had.
