As public relations stunts go, it was a classic. Sometime recently a clever in-house marketing brain or external PR consultant suggested to the MD of a small business communications company that the post-election period might present an opportunity for some easy publicity, writes Noel Whelan.
The idea's execution was very effective. The company paid for part of a survey to explore whether non-voters in the recent general election would have voted if they could have done so electronically. Most of those who didn't vote said they hadn't done so because getting to the polling station was impossible or inconvenient for them on the day. Not surprisingly almost half of those then said they would have voted if some form of e-voting had been available which avoided a visit to the polling station. The company then issued the findings to the media in a press release boldly headlined "Survey indicates e-voting would have added almost 400,000 voters to Irish election".
As this release hit the quiet, late July news desks the company garnered an incredible amount of publicity for itself. In the echo chamber that is the political silly season they achieved a volume of coverage which their total advertising budget could never have secured. Several newspapers carried a straight regurgitation of the company's press release. They even secured the jewel of PR coups - a national radio interview for the MD on Morning Ireland. It was an interesting insight into the extent to which the news agenda is sometimes be set by clever PR work. The assertion in the release's drum roll headline was superficial but that did not stop it getting extensive and largely unquestioning coverage.
The devil, of course, is in the detail of the story. The company defined e-voting as "voting through a secure website, calling a telephone voting service or text voting by mobile phone". An asterisk at this point of the release referred to a note pointing out that voters were asked whether they would use this type of online or tele-voting "assuming adequate levels of security" were in place. Respondents, therefore, were being asked to make quite an assumption.
There are four key requirements that would have to be met by any system which would seek to replace our current one.
First, it needs the capacity to handle the particular features of our voting system. Any system would have to meet the requirements of proportional representation single transferrable voting (PRSTV) at the interface between voter and ballot paper or touch screen and would also have to cope with eliminations and transfer of surpluses at the counting stage. This would be the easier of the requirements to meet.
Secondly, the system would have to meet the requirement of absolute secrecy of the ballot. This is not an added feature of our system but its central prerequisite. There must be no risk, however so remote, that the preference(s) expressed by any voter could be exposed to any other person, whether inadvertently or deliberately or whether to a person with authorised or unauthorised access.
Thirdly, the system would have to meet the requirement for transparency in the conduct of the count. This is what ensures the necessary public confidence in the system. Voters must be sure that their votes, as cast collectively, deliver the result voted for and in a manner which can be visibly cross-checked and verified.
Fourthly, the technology would have to deliver all of the above in a user-friendly manner in a nationally rolled-out system which, although used only periodically and requiring stringent security specifications, could be achieved cost effectively.
While the company's assertion was slavishly repeated by general and political media, it was largely rubbished on technology websites (and on politics websites by bloggers with a technology background), where it was pointed out that tele-voting, text voting or online voting of the type suggested is not yet developed to a stage which could be secure enough to allow the casting and counting of votes in an election.
One of the company's more facile suggestions was that issues of identity and security could be resolved by sending a pin number to each voter, as is currently done for motor tax. One only has to think of the potential for chaos and fraud likely to flow from the posting of up to three million pin numbers to the electorate days before an election to see how absurd this suggestion is. An even more fanciful suggestion was that identity issues could be overcome by biometric voice recognition.
Some day, when we all live in a Star Trek-like world, this may come to pass but it is a long way off. Neither suggestion shows any understanding of the sheer scale and complexity involved in more than two million voters availing of the service in one 24-hour period or in the need for votes cast by phone or online to be counted as transparently as they were last May.
The recent botched attempt by government to introduce an electronic voting and counting system illustrates the extent of the difficulties of designing, implementing and building trust in a system to meet these requirements. The e-voting system proposed could handle the complexity of PRSTV and was user-friendly but concerns about secrecy and the lack of transparency in the count meant there was no public confidence in it.
Even if technology were more advanced, one could still argue against the tele-voting or online voting route. Voting in an election is entirely different from voting in Big Brother or Celebrity You're a Star and it should require more considered participation. Maybe it is not too much to ask people to take the time required to present themselves at a polling station.
Online or tele-voting is not the way to increase turnout. Measured turnout was actually up 5 per cent on the 2002 election. An electoral commission, whose functions would include the encouragement of voter participation, would be a less gimmicky but far more effective means of increasing turnout than those suggested this week.