Costly storage of e-voting machines slammed as 'lunacy'
THE Government was yesterday accused of "lunacy" over its decision to take out 25-year rental leases for storage of the country's mothballed e-voting machines.
Most of the ill-fated electronic voting machines are currently being housed in locations around the country for an average of five years.
However, the Irish Independent last week revealed the State has acquired much longer-term leases in some areas.
In Monaghan, the State has taken out a massive 25-year lease to store 288 machines at a cost of over €27,000 a year.
The total cost of storing the machines in rented locations around the country has soared by €50,000 since 2004.
Fine Gael TD Sean Barrett accused ministers of "wasting more taxpayers' money" on the "sorry saga" of e-voting.
"The stubborn decision to cling to the possibility of using the machines in the future ignored all concerns expressed about fraud and hacking into the system," he said.
Just last week, officials in the Netherlands -- the "home of NEDAP voting machines" -- abandoned the electronic project amid security fears.
Despite this, Mr Barrett added, the government was determined to continue with the "myth" that "increasingly redundant" voting machines will still be useable after 2032.
"Public confidence in electronic voting has largely diminished since the Government spent €51.3m on untested machines prior to 2002," he said.
"It is perfectly obvious these machines will never be used and it's past time for the Government to take the hard decision to cease wasting more taxpayer's money."
