E-voting would have added 400,000 ballots to election poll
Political Correspondent
BERTIE Ahern, who has long and loudly pressed the case for the modernisation of voting and an end to "oul' peann luaidhes" (pencils) in polling stations, has some vindication for his stance from a new opinion poll.
The general election featured no electronic voting after a damning report on the system used in three Dail constituencies in the 2002 contest.
Now 44pc of non-voters interviewed by a pollster have claimed they failed to exercise their franchise because of difficulties getting to their polling station on election day.
More than half of all people questioned in a representative national sample said they would have availed of e-voting methods had they been available.
These included voting through a secure website, calling a telephone voting service, or text-voting by mobile phone. If these methods were available, 51pc of all Irish people say they would use them, including two-thirds of young people aged 18-34. Only half of this group voted in the June 24 poll.
The survey was carried out last month among 931 adults nationwide by the independent research firm Millward Brown IMS. The firm says the survey indicates that an additional 395,640 people "would have voted" if a variety of e-voting methods had been available on polling day.
The actual election turnout was just over two million people, meaning the extra vote could have affected the destination of a swathe of seats.
Four in five of those asked did not receive any electronic messages from candidates or parties about the election, despite increasing numbers of Irish people obtaining their information from websites, email, blogs, podcasts and other electronic formats.
Only 12pc of those questioned had received such material, the survey revealed. Yet it did not affect older voters, with 94pc of those aged 65-plus saying they voted.
Almost three-quarters (72pc) of those who didn't vote, but would have been willing to use electronic methods, were in the 18-34 age category.
Voting by mobile phone was the most popular option for 18-24-year-olds, while using the internet on a secure website was preferred by 25-34-year-olds, and calling a telephone voting service most popular for 50-year-olds and over. Those in the 35-49 category were evenly split between options.
One in 20 of those interviewed said they received canvassing via a mobile phone text, with 4pc seeing an election-related internet site, and 3pc receiving election spam via email.
Smaller numbers cited internet blog sites, podcasts and YouTube video.
John McCabe, managing director of Damovo Ireland, which commissioned the survey, said: "This survey reveals that Irish people are very open to the proposition of voting by electronic means.
"Younger people show most interest in voting remotely via the web, phone or by text. For many of this generation, the concept of going to a polling station to write on a card seems strange." "With another quarter-of-a-million Irish teenagers reaching voting age at the next election, the government should start to consider additional voting methods."
John McCabe, whose firm specialises in business communication, said he recognised that security would have to play an important part in any decision to introduce new e-voting options in Ireland.
"We realise that any of the proposed methods would have to be rigorously tested. We would recommend that any attempt to introduce other methods of e-voting should be phased-in gradually, possibly using local elections as a first step.
"Ireland should be harnessing technological advancements to ensure that all of our citizens can be included in the democratic process."
- Senan Molony
