Ireland: E-voting machines go to scrap after proving unreliable

By EDRi · July 18, 2012

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Irland: Unzuverlässige E-Voting-Geräte werden verscherbelt | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.14_Irland_Unzuverlaessige_E-Voting-Geraete_werden_verscherbelt?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20120718]

The e-voting machines that were bought by the Irish Government in 2002
and which were supposed to be used for all elections are now being sold
for almost nothing as scrap.

The e-voting system was given up two years after the machines have
failed to prove safe from tampering and had no possibility to have a
paper print for a double check of the results. In 2006, the Commission
on Electronic Voting, on a second report on the e-voting system,
recommended the use of the system provided additional work was done to
improve the system.

The recommendations included the addition of a voter verified audit
trail, the replacement of the election management software with a
version that is developed to mission critical standards, the
modification of the embedded software & the machine and the
rectification of the identified security vulnerabilities. As these
conditions have never been met, the Irish Government is now in the
position of ending up an embarrassing story that has brought a large
cost to the Irish citizens.

The machines that had cost 51 million Euro in 2002 are now sold for
70000 Euro the entire lot. The storage for several years also costed
some additional 3.2 million Euro for their storage. “I am glad to bring
this sorry episode to a conclusion on behalf of the taxpayer. From the
outset, this project was ill-conceived and poorly planned by my
predecessors and as a result it has cost the taxpayer some €55m,” said
Environment Minister Phil Hogan.

€54m voting machines scrapped for €9 each (29.06.2012)
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/54m-voting-machines-scrapped-for-9-each-3153437.html

Electronic voting in Ireland
http://evoting.cs.may.ie/

EDRi-gram: Critical report on Irish e-voting system released (12.07.2006)
https://edri.org/edrigram/number4.14/evotingireland