[E-voting] FF councillor says "scrap e-voting machines"

[Aengus Lawlor]

The Sunday Times reports a Fianna Fail councillor who has broken ranks with 
the party to denounce the EUR52 million e-voting system. Damien Blake, the 
outgoing mayor of Letterkenny, said the EUR52 million spent on the e-voting 
system should be written off as a "sunk cost".

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9833236

The kicker is that he says that "Derry-based firm Opt2Vote has developed an 
electronic system that counts hand-marked ballots by scanning them using 
pattern-recognition software. In contrast to the current Nedap system there 
is a clear paper trail for a recount".

The article closes with a response from Joe McCarthy:
  Joe McCarthy, a technology consultant and a critic of the government's
  electronic voting system, said he would not support the Opt2Vote system.
  "It may be faster at counting but you are still putting your trust in a
  computer," he said. "There is too much risk letting mechanical things
  do something which is better done by humans."

Aengus