E-Voting Machines
In the ongoing saga of the governments public relations and financial debacle of trying to modernize the electoral process there seems to be no progress or solution in sight. With the upcoming General Election only weeks away it seems likely that the controversy will come to the forefront once again.
Tremendous amounts of money (€50 million to date) have been carelessly squandered in the purchase, maintainence, and storage of this equipment by a government totally out of touch with the views and opinions of the public. In a show of arrogant conspicuous consumption, along with other flagrant examples of wasting taxpayers money (to be dealt with later), the aquisition of these 7,500 electronic voting machines is the proverbial millstone around the neck of our favorite pet the "Celtic Tiger".
Fianna Fail is the only political party that has any interest in promoting the use of these machines and the public will not accept them this year as they did not accept them years ago. So what next? They will stay in storage (at a cost of at least €13,000 a week) for twenty-five more years? €17,500,000 could be better spent in health or education me thinks.
So, we have a situation, what is an alternative? I say allocate these machines to the University system throughout the island for use by the IT and Sociology Departments to conduct relavent polls of public opinion.
Instead of moth-balling these machines in some garden sheds around the country they should put them into malls, shopping centres, and other public arenas so the people can have a bash at them. Giving the University departments autonomy in the placement, upkeep, programming, the formation and phrasing of questions, and publication of the results, would be a win/win solution. The general public would have the benefit of seeing, using, and getting familiar with the workings of these wonders of modern technology where the only thing at stake is their opinions instead of something as valuable as their vote.
The results of political, social, and current affairs could be collected, collated, and published on a weekly or monthly basis. Local, national, and international views could be expressed by the public while the Universities would gain valuable experience in the project. Who knows maybe the machines would prove their worth after all and the public would grow to love them!
