[E-voting] First draft press release

[Margaret McGaley]

[NOT FOR RELEASE]

Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting (ICTE) today welcomed the release 
of the Commission on Electronic Voting's second report on the secrecy 
and accuracy of the Nedap/Powervote e-voting system. "We are satisfied 
that this report vindicates our concerns about this e-voting system, 
particularly the need for a voter verified paper audit trail (p153,4) 
and the need to entirely replace the vote-management section of the 
system (p14)" said Margaret McGaley, spokesperson for ICTE.

In response to Minister Roche's determination to continue with the 
introduction of this system, Ms McGaley highlighted highlighted the 
expense the necessary modifications would entail. "We should not decide 
to use this system without doing a full cost-benefit analysis. The 
changes laid out by the commission are extensive. They will require a 
significant investment of both time and money to implement, and we need 
to ask if this system is worth it. The €60 million that has been spent 
to date is gone and the futher investment of several years, and millions 
of euro, will not bring it back."