Ireland's narrow escape; the failure of e-voting

In early 2004, as until 2008, Ireland had many of the ingredients for that type of corporate governance we call fascism; a largely unaccountable police force (as the 2006 Morris report has attested), union of labor unions and employers under the auspices of the state in “ social partnership” agreements, a charismatic power-hungry prime minister (P. “Bertie” Ahern), and continual encroachment by a powerful state into aspects of civil society that started with the domestication of the trade unions. Massive privatizations were being contemplated, starting with the universities; of those actually achieved, that of the telecommunications sector has left Ireland in the third world with respect to broadband. The universities' privatizations were presaged by attempted manipulation of the quasi-Orwellian “social partnership” agreements to destroy academic tenure, with the death of at least one young academic as a result, and the destruction of academic freedom.

From January to June 2004, Ireland through Ahern held both the presidency of the EU (which rotates) and that of the European Parliament, through a rightwing elected parliamentarian. Having violated the practice of Irish neutrality in allowing both rendition flights and US troops through Shannon airport, one of the themes of the Irish dual presidency was to debauch the status of interlocutor of France/Germany and the Anglo-Saxon military alliance by unambiguous support by Ireland of the Iraq adventure. Dutch Nedap e-voting machines were chosen to implement the final stage of the takeover by globalized corporatism; a report was commissioned with political hacks and appointees forming a majority in the committee.

However, problems began immediately. The initial reaction of the committee to the proposed e-voting process was so severe that the Dutch threatened libel action. The report, as released a month before the machines were meant to be used in European and local elections, is at www.cev.ie/htm/report/V02.pdf. It made clear that there was no debugged version of the software available even at that late stage, so voting proceeded in time-honored Irish fashion. This includes informal checking by “tallymen” from each party, and formal public counting by civil servants. The government was trounced, with Ahern's party suffering their worst result since entering the democratic realm from their wilderness years as the proto-IRA.

An intriguing aspect of the proposed software is the use of Microsoft access as the database program, which few responsible consultants would have urged. Blackbox voting, among others, have shown how access can be exploited to set up a double accounting system, with election officials acting in good faith likely to be duped. After controversies about the storage of the machines on the property of his political supporters, Ahern ordered a second report which came out in 2006. It can be found at evoting.cs.may.ie/. Despite frantic attempts by Ahern to spin it as a resounding endorsement, on the extraordinary basis that it said that only the software was at fault, it is now clear that e-voting would not be used in our general election in 2007. When his popularity blipped upward, as in October 2006, Ahern attempted to reintroduce the topic, with the plan being use of e-voting in 2009 local and European elections, with storage by the army. This was abandoned, and the machines are now being junked.

The Irish case strongly suggests that e-voting is critical to the neocon agenda; it is vitally important to keep the pressure up so that this proposal never again sees the light of day.