NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY

COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURES

OFFICIAL REPORT

(Hansard)

Electronic Voting

3 October 2007

Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Lord Morrow (Chairperson)
Mr Mervyn Storey (Deputy Chairperson)
Lord Browne
Mr Francie Brolly
Mr Raymond McCartney
Mr W Clarke
Mr Adrian McQuillan
Mr Declan O’Loan
Mr Ken Robinson

Witnesses:
Mr Alan Murphy ) Houses of the Oireachtas
Ms Bridget Doody )
Mr John McMahon ) Office of Public Works
Mr Gary Conway )

The Chairperson of the Committee on Procedures (Lord Morrow):
I welcome Mr Alan Murphy and Ms Bridget Doody from the Houses of the Oireachtas and Mr John McMahon and Mr Gary Conway from the Office of Public Works (OPW) and offer you all a cordial welcome. Thank you for coming to the Committee and assisting us to look at electronic voting.

Mr Alan Murphy (Houses of the Oireachtas):
Thank you. We are delighted to accept your invitation to tell you of our experiences with electronic voting in Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann, the Houses of the Oireachtas. We hope that our experience will be of value to you in your work.

I am joined by my colleague Bridget Doody. My other colleagues are John McMahon and Gary Conway. They are from the OPW, which is responsible for procurement, maintenance and tendering on behalf of Government. It also, in our case, provides those services to the Parliament, and that is how they were involved in the electronic voting project.

Bridget and I served as Clerk to our Committee on Procedures and Privileges, which corresponds to this Committee, when electronic voting was being introduced, first in Dáil Éireann and then in Seanad Éireann.

I held the baton up to the point where the system was installed, and Bridget took it thereafter. We are, therefore, available to answer questions on all aspects of the project.

I shall give the Committee some background information on the electronic voting system — probably more information than it will need. Mr McMahon will take members through the technical aspects of the installation project, which was run by the OPW in conjunction with our office. Finally, if time permits, we have some video footage of divisions in the Dáil and in Seanad Éireann before and after the installation of electronic voting. I have 45 minutes of footage, although much of that can be compressed. If the Committee would like to view that, in preference to asking questions, we will be at your disposal. We will be happy to take questions as well.

Although the Irish Parliament has only been voting electronically since 2002, record-keeping has been alive and well since 1922, and I was able to unearth evidence of approaches to electronic voting that were being proposed from outside the Parliament as far back as then. There are as many options for electronic voting as there are ways to run Parliament. It does no harm to recognise that. One of the earliest systems offered to Members involved having a sealed box, and when he or she activated a lever on the outside of the box, one of two counters would drop into a hidden chamber, which was taken away and weighed. It was essentially a mechanical system.

Later systems were offered, but none were taken up. I am sure that other Parliaments were on the same circuit of offers. There were proposals for mechanical or punched-card systems, and later electro-mechanical systems — low-voltage ones, so that there was no risk to Members using them. Finally, during the 1970s or thereabouts, the first electronic systems were being pitched. They involved a closed black box similar to the current system.

The momentum for the introduction of electronic voting originated in Dáil Éireann with a modest request from party Whips that the Clerk of the House make proposals to them on how to reduce the amount of time being wasted through voting and to rationalise the irregular hours at which voting typically took place in the House. My office’s response to that was an enquiry to the European Parliament, which had recently migrated to electronic voting at Strasbourg and Luxembourg. An interesting footnote was that they had chosen an Olivetti system over a Siemens system, which, I suppose, is indicative of the forces that were in play in that assembly at the time.

We were also informed that electronic voting was being used at that time in Madrid and Stockholm, but had been abandoned in the Bundestag because Members could not see how their Chairmen were voting. I take that to mean that the system did not give enough of a cue to Members to allow them to see how their parties or leaders were voting. I shall revisit that point later.

In direct response to the request from the party Whips, my illustrious predecessors prepared a memorandum — which, I must say, was somewhat lukewarm — in response to the issues that were raised. Their conclusion was that of the 14 minutes that it took to run a Division, only three were amenable to a time saving, with the balance being tied up with essential duties relating to the conduct of the vote and the time that it took to bring Members to the Chamber.

Conveniently, a House of Commons Committee had just concluded that there would be no significant time saving for that House either. To nail the coffin more tightly shut, that Committee said that only 10 out of 56 Parliaments recorded in a publication called ‘Parliaments of the World’ were using electronic voting systems at that time. The Committee further commented that the system had been abandoned by the European Parliament. Finally, it concluded that to take votes all at once or to postpone votes on matters such as Bills and subordinate amendments to motions was a procedurally challenging task.

After that fairly firm response, the question of electronic voting lay dormant until the House established the Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform, a standing subcommittee of our Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which is the equivalent of the Assembly’s Committee on Procedures.

The Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform began by introducing basic information technology into the administration of Parliament. We began broadcasting in one House, and then in the other in 1990. A later initiative was the establishment of legislative and policy review Committees, which took substantial amounts of work away from the House.

The Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform was also the first internal body to take a formal interest in electronic voting. My predecessor as Clerk issued questionnaires to 17 Parliaments. That questionnaire asked broadly the same questions as this Committee has asked us, and the responses were collated for the subcommittee.

The Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform also travelled to Madrid, Rome and Copenhagen, which had been identified as having Parliaments that ran systems of electronic voting in similar contexts. By that I mean that they had two Houses, a similar number of Members or other comparators. Coming towards the end of the lifetime of that Dáil, a budget allocation of IR£100,000 was made available through the special supplementary estimate. The Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform placed a works order with colleagues in the OPW. The works order and supplementary estimate timed out in that year because of a general election, but not before the OPW had made a presentation on the possible options for electronic voting.

At the time of the dissolution, there was no formal specification or fixed vision about what form electronic voting would take. Between 1992 and 1997, the issue lay dormant until the successor to the Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform took up the cudgels of electronic voting. It was also involved in the expansion of the Committee system, which meant one Committee scrutinising each Department. The Chairman of the subcommittee, Minister Séamus Brennan, was moved to prepare a comprehensive reform and modernisation package to present to the House. Electronic voting was included in that package as more of a modernisation than a reform element.

Electronic voting was still in the memory of the subcommittee. The reason that the issue was raised again was that technological advances, such as thumbprint identification, had been made since the early part of the 1990s. Another reason was the time savings that electronic voting offered. I have observed that your Members can vote on arrival at the Chamber, which we did not have, and do not have. That allows a free voting interval. Although it does not free up the overall time taken for a Division, it does free up personal time for Members while still allowing them to vote.

The desire to adopt electronic voting was primarily rooted in wanting a modern Parliament that embraced modern methods of doing business. There was another informal visit to Madrid — the Minister of State and Chairman of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges included our colleagues in the OPW in the visit. It was from that visit that the vision for an electronic voting system, which cut through many of the choices and issues that I am about to outline to you, emerged.

The Minister of State and the Chairman of the Committee saw a particular method of implementing electronic voting that could be installed sympathetically in our Chamber. That was important, because when one first looks at electronic voting there are a myriad of options — no two Parliaments are the same in the minutiae of how they vote, and no two systems are the same, because each has its nuances. Therefore, it was very helpful, and somewhat direct, that the Minister of State and the Chairman cut through all those options to find something that they were prepared to champion. That decision was central to the introduction of electronic voting in the Oireachtas.

Thereafter, things moved quickly during 2001 and 2002, leading to implementation in 2002. Before the 2001 summer recess, an enabling resolution was obtained in the Dáil to allow the Committee to proceed with the development and installation of the system. Options for the specification were presented to the Committee by my colleagues from the OPW, which also handled procurement issues. Mr McMahon will provide more details on the design, installation and testing of the system.

As Clerks, it was our job to ensure that proper operating procedures, and instructions for Members on how to use the system, were in place when it came into operation. Also, the Committee felt that the media presentation of electronic voting was important and significant. When the system was ready to be commissioned, the final piece of the jigsaw was the introduction of a special Standing Order to enable electronic voting to become the default method of voting in the Parliament.

That concludes the history leading up to the implementation of electronic voting. I will now move on to the practical and procedural considerations that I encountered along the way.

At the centre of any voting system is the method involved, and it is true to say that no two voting methods — whether by qualified, simple majority, or other methods — are quite the same, either mathematically or in their implementation and practice. It is important to identify where your method lies in the constellation of options.

Likewise, it is important to identify whether your current voting procedures, and how Members record their preferences, can be faithfully represented by electronic means, and whether that is the appropriate way to express them. For example, roll-call votes, in which Members’ names are called and state their preference for or against the question, differ substantially from votes by a show of hands, where a Member’s identity is not necessarily attached to their vote. Those are both public methods of voting; other methods may require a degree of secrecy some, or part, of the time. A back-to-basics approach is required to identify where your system lies in that constellation of options.

Equally — and I note with interest the system that you have in place here — the degree of automation required can also vary extensively. Although we went for a fully-automated system, including a display board to show results, which is not essential but perhaps desirable, it would equally be possible for the results to be announced without simultaneously displaying the process by which they were arrived at.

I see that, in your Assembly, the Clerks conduct the electronic piece of work that makes up the vote, whereas, in ours, the Members do that work by individually recording their own votes, which saves time. Those are nuances of the system, which causes one to realise that there is a large field of activity out there to be tapped into. In our case, a casting vote from the Chair is an infrequently exercised but, nonetheless, important piece of parliamentary practice to capture.

Last, but not least, are the sorts of preferences that Members may wish to record. Voting yes or no is fairly obvious, but not every Parliament implements to the same extent the option to record a formal abstention or that a Member is present but not voting. We may have jumped the gun on that one. In our House, Members are only recorded as having voted yes or no on a question. It was at my request that the possibility of an abstention button was removed. That left us with unseen consequences in that, once a Member expresses a preference, whether it is one they wish to express or not, they have no way to withdraw it. They may press the yes or no buttons, but, having pressed either, they are recorded as having expressed a preference, whereas, if I had left the third button in, they would have had the opportunity to change their mind at any point in the process.

There is a thin line to be drawn, I suppose, between the faithful representation of the system that you already have, and the necessary differences that any new system that you choose will bring.

There are issues of transparency and secrecy at the centre of the use of electronic systems. Those issues will be to the fore, depending on the implementation of the system that you choose. It was important for us to have open voting, and that is why we ended up with a display board, so that we could have a strong representation in lieu of Members walking through Lobbies and being seen from the Public Gallery and from other positions in the House. It was important that a decision taken by a Member could be identified with an action and that he or she could be seen to be taking that action. The issues of fraud, interference or system error were low on the agenda, because our voting system is so public and open. Those issues have not come to the fore since the introduction of the system.

Linking the identity of a Member who casts a vote to the preference that he or she expressed posed a challenge because of the myriad of options that that presented. In the end, we chose a dedicated seating system, because that relieved us of the requirement to have identification cards or any other linkage. Although thumbprint recognition was discussed on the way into the debate, it did not come out of it in the same way. We implemented dedicated seating to create the link between the Member and his or her preference.

More liberal systems than ours would, perhaps, have led to the possibility of Members voting despite their not being present in the Chamber. We did not go that far because that possibility did not exist before the introduction of electronic voting. Likewise, the possibility of voting by proxy, whether one wanted to permit it or prohibit it — or neither permit nor prohibit, but enable it — was not a feature of the previous system and therefore, was not something that we had to confront in the new system, either by permitting, prohibiting or enabling it. That question remains unanswered, but that question has not been posed in a challenging way since the system was implemented.

In conclusion, on procedural issues, the question of whether you intend to embrace electronic voting as a mere option, or whether you intend it to be the default position, will determine, to some degree, how elaborate a system you implement. In our case, issues relating to exception handling have not arisen in practice. In other words, votes continue to go as smoothly as they did beforehand, and no new exceptions, in the Members’ experience, in interacting with the voting process, have arisen. Equally, there have been no objections to the process, and the automated nature of the system has not been a problem. To that extent, we have achieved had a smooth implementation.

More fundamental is the question of whether you would go so far as to dispense with your existing method of voting, or whether you would maintain it in parallel with the new system. On the procedural front, the closer one looks, the more one realises that, although many voting systems have similar attributes, very few are identical, and no two implementations are the same.

For us, the practical issues of implementing the system were, as I said earlier, such that it should faithfully represent the existing manual system — the system should not provide any additional functionality, nor should it present Members with any diminished functionality. In addition to that, it should have no unforeseen behaviours. To that end, we recognised that, in the installation of an electronic system, it may be necessary to introduce additional cues for Members to indicate how their party or group may be voting, and, therefore, in what way they themselves might wish to vote. The very strong cue represented by a party Whip or leader moving towards a Lobby is not present. Therefore, it is necessary to allow for a clear indicator to be displayed on the screen of whether the Whip is voting first, or otherwise, and how the Members who follow him or her will be voting.

Equally, when we implemented e-voting in the second Chamber, we learned that we had perhaps been over-rigid in our implementation in the House by binding the Clerks to a prescribed list of options as to how to conduct a vote.

When we implemented the system in the second Chamber, we found that a much more freestyle implementation fitted the bill — once Clerks became used to using the system. Reliability and security have not been a problem for us, and the system has been well accepted.

I am not sure that the issue of time-saving is to the forefront of your concerns. Overall, our manual Divisions used to take between 15 and 20 minutes to conduct. We estimate that we have reduced that by approximately five minutes. Therefore, Divisions are reduced to just in excess of 10-15 minutes.

As for practical issues, there was a concern that — by voting from their places in the House — Members would lose out on some of the more social aspects of voting, such as the opportunity to meet members of the Government, other colleagues and constituency colleagues. We feel that there has not been an express problem with that issue. Members still gather in the Chamber and there are opportunities for them to mix before and after the voting interval.

The installation of the electronic voting system in a historic building presented its own challenges. However, our colleagues in the OPW are accomplished in that area, and we feel that they presented us with an elegant solution. An issue that arose along the way was the limited availability of uniform seating for every Member of the House. We had 166 Members and about 142 seats with desks: the remaining Members were accommodated in a front row with no desks. Therefore, we had to make a special arrangement for those Members.

Likewise, the voting panel was not always visible from every position in the Chamber, not least from the position of An Ceann Comhairle, whose back is to the panel. Consequently, special provision had to be made to enable him to see the clocks and the synoptic panel during voting.

We did not avail of other options for a variety of reasons, which included interference with other systems in the Chamber — such as the sound system and other IT systems. Our electronic voting system stands alone, which is often cited as one of its virtues. We did not investigate other spin-offs from the installation of the electronic voting system, which might have included an opportunity for Members to record their presence in the Chamber for the purpose of establishing a quorum or the opportunity to register speaking requests with the Chair. We understand that those are options that you might want to consider.

There were tactile issues for the Whips — in the monitoring of, and reporting on, the result of a vote — which included an additional difficulty in ascertaining how a Member was about to vote, up to the point when they actually cast it. Enforcing any pairing arrangements — when a paired Member is not physically present in the Lobby — was not quite so easy to keep a hold on. Similarly, telling — counting Members as they pass through the Lobby at the point of voting — is seriously diminished. Therefore, the Whips have to devise new methods to compensate for that loss of the tactile element of manual voting.

Block voting — whereby one postpones all voting until a certain point in the day — was acknowledged but did not arise for our subcommittee because we did not really embrace it.

It was anticipated that to take votes en bloc might raise attendance or discipline issues for the Whips, once Members know that there is a 10- or 20-minute voting interval at the end of the day, which leaves them free and unencumbered, with the possibility of on-the-fly votes for the remainder of the day.

Certainly, for our Clerks and Members, electronic voting has been a positive experience. Previously, Clerks were responsible for seeing to the Gallery and counting the Members through manually, requiring them to identify — at speed — every Member who passed through the Lobby. Electronic voting is a much more relaxed process for Clerks who are prepared to become accustomed to a fly-by-wire system of conducting the vote.

There have not been any complaints from Members about the new voting system. In fact, when I spoke to the Clerk Assistant before coming here, I asked about Members’ feedback. He said that Members’ complaints only arise when the system is not available, and they ask why they are not voting electronically that day.

Four factors drove the adoption of electronic voting in our Parliament. First, someone was prepared to act as its champion; he knew what he wanted and was prepared to take the necessary steps to achieve it. In our case, it was the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform, Mr Séamus Brennan. Secondly, and equally important in the mix, was having a facilitator. In our case, it was our colleagues in the Office of Public Works, who had the resources and expertise to bring to bear on the procurement and delivery of such a project on time.

Thirdly, the seed that was sown in Madrid seemed to have been a trivial one at first. It was simply a synoptic panel containing a geographical representation of the Chamber that had been placed in a disused doorway of the Chamber and which caught the Chairman’s imagination. He transferred that vision into our Chamber and pursued it to the final installation. That vision was essential. Fourthly, a target was set to have electronic voting implemented before the end of the lifetime of that Dáil, and there was a target — enforced by the summer recess — to have enabling measures and initial preparations in place before the last summer recess of that Dáil.

Mr John McMahon (Office of Public Works):
I am head of project management services in the Office of Public Works in Dublin. We are the custodians of state property and look after construction of police stations, prisons, offices and so on. We have a wide portfolio, which encompasses —

The Chairperson:
Can I interrupt you a second? When you stand up, the microphones have trouble in picking up your voice.

Mr McMahon:
I will sit down. The Oireachtas — Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann — forms a part of our portfolio of old heritage buildings in the centre of Dublin. Mr Murphy has painted quite a good picture of how we got involved. In January 2001, Minister Brennan requested us to install electronic voting in Dáil Éireann. In April 2001, we examined various systems, particularly the one that the Minister had seen in Madrid, as it was a system that he had been particularly taken with. We assessed it from a technical perspective and reported to Dáil Éireann that the system was viable. In June of that year, the Sub-Committee approved it, and that was followed by formal Dáil approval in July 2001. We then —

The Chairperson:
Sorry to interrupt, John.

Mr McMahon:
Is that better?

The Chairperson:
It is not your fault, John. There is interference from the projector, and the hum from that is adding to the problem. Go ahead.

Mr McMahon:
I will speak up.

The Chairperson:
I know it is difficult because you are trying to refer to the projection. Please speak into the microphone. I am sorry to interrupt.

Mr McMahon:
By July 2001, the full project team was in place. From July to October, the detailed system design and enabling works took place. In January 2002, the main display panel was installed. The main display panel is the synoptic panel, which contains a geographic diagram of the Chamber and shows how Members have voted. The system went live in February 2002.

As the building is a heritage building, we engaged our own architects to advise us on the project. Project Management Ltd were the consultant engineers — I hope that all the talk of project managers does not confuse members, but that is the name of the engineering company involved. O’Connor Sutton Cronin were the consultant structural engineers, SKS Communications Ltd were the nominated suppliers, and Mercury Engineering were the electrical contractors. They are all well-known companies.

As Mr Murphy said, there are two main systems of electronic voting, and we considered both. The fixed-seating system allocates each Member a particular seat from which he or she can operate a designated manual voting machine. That system introduces a degree of inflexibility, in that Members must sit in a particular seat to cast their vote. The alternative system is the non-fixed seating arrangement, whereby Members can sit in any seat in the House and vote by inserting an ID card into a voting machine.

Some issues arose during the consideration of that system, such as what would happen if a Member were to forget his card and therefore could not vote. The suggested solution was that the Ceann Comhairle could retain duplicate cards at the desk. However, the question then was what would happen if the duplicate cards were lost. There were also some, perhaps unreasonable, concerns about the unauthorised use of the cards. Members asked what would happen if they accidentally left their cards somewhere and someone else used them to vote.

Initially, Members were nervous of the technology and wanted to ensure that their votes were cast in exactly the way they intended. In the end, the fixed-seating option was chosen. However, we incorporated some flexibility into that by building a facility into the voting boxes at each Member’s desk whereby we could migrate to card voting should that option be chosen in the future.

The Dáil Éireann and Senead Éireann Chambers are part of an historic building that is hundreds of years old. There is a long history attached to Leinster House. It was owned by the Royal Dublin Society and, before it became the Dáil Éireann, part of it was used as a lecture theatre. It is a historic property, which dates back to when it was Lord Leinster’s original town residence in Dublin.

The principal objective of the project was to introduce new technology to the Chamber while causing the minimum amount of injury or damage — to the building, not to the Members. Issues of planning permission arose, because Leinster House is a protected structure. Under existing planning laws, work to our Parliament buildings, and similarly to our Department of Justice buildings, does not require the full planning process. Part 9 of the Local Government Planning and Development Regulations 2001 requires us to consult before taking any decisions, rather than going through the full statutory planning process. It allows us some flexibility to carry out works of this nature.

As Mr Murphy said, Minister Brennan was highly enamoured of the idea of a display panel, which would be a geographical representation of how Members in the Chamber voted. Therefore, we had to find a place for that panel in the Chamber. Having seen the Assembly Chamber in Parliament Buildings today, I think that installing a similar panel there would pose a challenge to any designer. The Chamber is impressive and historic-looking, and to introduce new technology would be particularly challenging. Perhaps our Chamber better lent itself to the installation of a new panel.

We had to conceal the voting machines within the existing furniture of the Chamber. The idea was to install them in such a way that they could not be seen, and we had to adapt the existing Ceann Comhairle’s desk with the minimum of change. We also had to conceal PC and other IT equipment in the Chamber, because printouts of votes must be signed off by the Clerks and the Tellers, and they must be available in the Chamber. We were asked to provide elegant solutions, which really meant hiding everything.

As regards planning permission, we have an in-house consultation committee on protected structures. Much to our delight, that committee agreed that what we were doing was inconsequential to the building, because we were doing so little injury to the Chamber and because the equipment would not be seen. An application under the 2001 Regulations was not deemed to be necessary.

With regard to client consultation and design solutions, we micromanaged the project, and that proved to be worthwhile in the long run. We carried out extensive consultations, particularly with our clients in the Oireachtas. Mr Murphy led on the official side, and we had extensive discussion with Whips and Members. In fact, we spoke with everyone. We were lucky that there was sufficient seating to accommodate the 166 voting positions that were required, but the Assembly here may not have a situation that is as convenient. We had front seats with no table rests, which were previously seen as less attractive seating, but those seats allowed us to accommodate the 166 voting machines. That was a great benefit.

The synoptic panel shows the voting results in graphic, geographical form, and comprises two sections. Our project team recommended a smaller panel than the one envisaged by the Minister, so we did some mock-ups of panels and hung them in the Chamber to see what they would look like from all angles. The Minister insisted on a larger panel, and he was right. That panel has worked extremely well, and is in proportion with the room, whereas a smaller panel would not have looked as well.

We were asked to match the panel to the mahogany of the existing furniture, so we put a mahogany trim around the voting panel and included a gold frame to match the curtains. We motorised the existing gold curtain on the wall behind An Ceann Comhairle and hid the panel behind it. We had to build a facility that would allow the curtain to open and close smoothly, silently and quickly.

The main panel comprises a large section and a small section. The larger top section shows the seating graphics, the voting results and the clock, which shows Members how much time they have in which to vote. Initially, we selected 30 seconds, but there was some nervousness that that would not provide Members with enough time to cast their vote, or that they might want more time to think about their vote. However, the time is adjustable.

The display panel uses the international traffic light colours for voting machines, which are red for No and green for Yes — or, in our case, red for Níl and green for Tá. As Mr Murphy said, there is no provision for abstention. The clock has a preset countdown for the voting period. The smaller bottom section provides for 33 characters, or numbers, over three lines. In that section we record relevant information such as the subject of the vote, the title of the Bill, the number and sponsor of the amendment, the text of the question or the Tellers’ names. That section is sufficient to capture any information required.

A map of Members’ names against assigned seats has been developed, and that enables the Tellers and the Clerks to easily correlate the Members with the designated seat numbers on the voting panel. We can match up everything, such as the name of each Member who sits at each particular seat and the record of the vote that he, or she, has cast.

Several issues arose. We chose a Philips system, which was also the one used in Madrid. That system was common throughout Europe and was deemed to be the best. The Office of Public Works contracted with a subsidiary of Philips in Eindhoven to produce the hardware. The English language may not be the perfect vehicle; however, we thought we had given the firm the exact design criteria in order to produce the equipment. Luckily, we insisted on quite a number of site visits to make sure that we got exactly what we wanted. On one visit we noticed that the trim was not what we had asked for — it had bolts, which made it appear too industrial-looking, and we insisted that it be done again because it was just not right.

There was also a flickering problem with the screen, which was only apparent when we visited the site. Technology was used to correct that, and we obviated the problem of the system arriving in Ireland in an imperfect state and a more awkward resolution of the problem having to be found.

Mr Murphy has outlined the voting procedure, so I will run through the mechanics of the system quite quickly. The Clerk opens the curtains in front of the main and mini displays and dispatches the prepared text, but not the Tellers’ names, from his PC to the main and mini displays. The bell rings for six minutes, and Members proceed to the Chamber. Obviously, the period of time that Members take to get there can vary — it depends on their distance from the Chamber. Some Members’ offices are quite a distance away, so we had to allow a reasonable period to allow people to leave their offices and arrive in the Chamber — six minutes was deemed to be appropriate.

The bell then stops ringing, but the doors remain open for a further four minutes to allow Members to enter the Chamber — they have 10 minutes to get there to vote. The Clerk then dispatches the Tellers’ names to the main and mini displays. The Chamber doors are locked and no one can go in or out until the vote has been completed.

An Ceann Comhairle restates the question and announces the names of the Tellers. The Clerk initiates the electronic vote, and the main and mini displays present the countdown, which is one minute. Then the Members vote, and there is a facility for Members to change their vote during the voting period using the red and green buttons, Tá and Níl. If a Member mistakenly presses the wrong button he can correct that. He can press the buttons as often as he likes, thirty times if he wishes, but it is the last button he presses that will count as his vote. There was some play with the system at the outset as Members were getting used to it, but they now know that the last button they press will record their vote. A holding feature is available on the Clerk’s PC so that, should there be a need to suspend a vote for any reason, he can reactivate it from there. I do not think that a vote has been interrupted, but the facility to deal with it is there if needed.

All those facilities had to be built into the system as we developed it. At zero seconds the Clerk closes the vote and prevents any further votes from being cast, then initiates the printing of the vote result, and should there be a tie in the electronic vote result, An Ceann Comhairle will exercise his casting vote, and the result will be displayed on the main or mini display.

The Clerks and Tellers meet and the results are signed off. The Chief Teller presents the Tellers’ sheet to An Ceann Comhairle and the Clerk closes the vote. The Clerk closes the curtains in front of the main display and powers down the mini displays. The outputs of the vote are automatically made available in electronic form for the purpose of integration into the parliamentary records, which is done by the House officials.

The output data produced by the system is as follows. For each Division a set of printed outputs is required, including the Tellers’ sheet, which is a one-page summary sheet to be signed by the Tellers on confirmation of the result. That page also includes details of the vote, such as the data and the vote number. The results sheet lists the names of the Members and their various parties and indicates with boxes marked Tá and Níl how the Members voted. Finally, there is an alphabetical results sheet, which is a single page with two lists headed Tá and Níl, the Tellers’ names, and the names of the Members who voted. It also gives the numerical result, which should be the same as that on the results sheet and constitutes a check that the vote was carried out properly.

Implementing the Dáil voting system cost €1·2 million and implementing the Seanad voting system cost €400,000. There is no main display panel in the Seanad system: the results are posted electronically on TV screens.

One lesson we have learned is the need for a clear brief of requirements. As Mr Murphy said, the Oireachtas wanted several options that were being used by different jurisdictions to be incorporated into our system. Diligently working through that brief of requirements, using micromanagement, paid dividends in the end.

Another lesson that we learned was that there should be no extraneous IT inputs. In the early days, we had the facility to link with the overall IT network in the Oireachtas, and the only downtime we experienced was when a virus was imported from the extraneous system into the dedicated voting system. That is the only such incident we have had, and we eliminated the possibility of it happening again by making the system a stand-alone system. Our advice would be that the integrity of a stand-alone system is guaranteed.

We used mock-ups, and hung pieces of equipment and screens of various sizes around the Chamber to see how they looked, which enabled a three-dimensional aspect to be added to the decisions that were being made.

As regards testing, I was aware that if the system did not work at an early stage, it would be discredited from the outset, so I insisted on 100 successful tests in a row to make sure that the system would work when it went live. I was determined that it would work from day one, and although 100 tests may seem excessive, I thought it was necessary.

There was consultation with all users, so we engaged in the greatest possible level of consultation with the system’s users before, during and after the project.

One of my last points is to expect the unexpected. The display panel had to be built into the Chamber, and as it was very heavy it was necessary to install structural supports. The entire Chamber had to have scaffolding so that the equipment could be brought in and out. During that process the tragedy of 9/11 occurred, and the Dáil was recalled for an emergency debate. We took everything out of the Chamber and restored it, and, following the day’s debate, we reconstructed the scaffolding. I mention that in order to point out that in undertaking such projects unanticipated events can occur and you may be forced to deal with the unexpected at any time.

A replica of the original curtain, which hangs on the back wall behind An Ceann Comhairle, was erected in the Chamber, and the display panel hidden behind the replica curtains. The curtains are opened electronically to reveal the panel, which is above the head of An Ceann Comhairle.

The seats at the front of the Chamber have armrests, and our job was to hide voting panels in those. A very talented carpenter who was working in our workshops built the voting boxes into the furniture. There is also the facility for voting cards in case we decide to migrate to that system.

From several locations in the Chamber, Members are unable to see the large display panel as it is hidden by other furniture. The press cannot see the display panel either, because their seats face away from it. Therefore, we built smaller display panels — electronic replicas of the main panel — for the press and for those Members who were unable to see the main one. Those Members have their own individual screens at their desks.

The Government generally sit on one side of the House, and the Opposition sit on the other side. I think it is fair to say that generally there are more Tá votes than Níl votes.

The clock counts down the time for the vote, and when it reaches zero, the Tá and Níl votes are counted. The desk that the Clerk and An Ceann Comhairle sit at has a facility for An Ceann Comhairle to cast his vote and the facility to use a voting card. The desk also contains the facility to open the curtains, and so on.

At the last election, for the first time, a person with a disability was elected to Dáil Éireann. We had been aware that there were several candidates with disabilities who had reasonable chances of success in the election. Therefore, we made sure that the Chamber was disability-friendly.

A voting box is hidden under the table in front of each Member. Each position has a dedicated number, so, for example, Member John Doe would sit at position DO1; he would be recorded as DO1, and he would vote at position DO1. Members are not obliged to sit in specific seats for any purpose other than voting. The front seats are generally unpopular because they do not have writing facilities or paper-holding facilities.

The Seanad Chamber is quite a small room. There are 60 Members in Seanad Éireann. In the old house, it would have been a drawing room, or small reception room, and not a Chamber. The room is popular among the Members of Seanad Éireann. We had to bring electronic voting into the room, using a system much the same as that in Dáil Éireann, but without the large panels. The solution was to adapt the flat-screen televisions that were already in the chamber. They were displaying information about what was going on in the House, and we adapted them to show the geographical representation of the Chamber and how the vote was going.

I hope that this presentation has provided the Committee with enough detail on how the project went. It went well, and the voting system has proved extremely reliable since it was installed.

The Chairperson:
I thank both gentlemen for their presentation; it has given us considerable detail. Mr Murphy, are you going to make an additional presentation?

Mr A Murphy:
Hindsight has shown that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I will leave the video for members to peruse in their own time. If you have any questions I will take them.

The Chairperson:
After that comprehensive and detailed report and presentation, I have a question for Mr McMahon. Was the cost of installation £1·2 million plus £400,000?

Mr McMahon:
No, the cost of installation in Dáil Éireann was £1·2 million and the cost for Seanad Éireann was £400,000. The reason that Dáil Éireann was more expensive, in proportion, was that the synoptic panel — the big voting panel that goes on the wall — was an expensive item. Leinster House is an old house, and it was not built for that type of installation, so inserting it in the wall required serious structural work. Privately, I suspect that our structural engineers may have gone a bit over the top — I think an elephant could hang there and would not fall — but they did their job and the panel will never fall. It is fitted securely to the wall.

The Chairperson:
Did your system come into effect in 2002?

Mr McMahon:
It went live in February 2002.

The Chairperson:
Has the system been updated since then?

Mr McMahon:
No.

The Chairperson:
Do you envisage any updates to the system?

Mr McMahon:
A successful maintenance regime is in place, and IT specialists are available at all times in case the system goes down. That involves an expense but it guarantees the integrity of the system. OPW would go back in only if the Oireachtas were to change the way they do business, or if there were physical aspects of the system that they did not like. We have not been called back to update the system.

The Chairperson:
I ask that question because I am always apprehensive about modern IT systems that are almost obsolete by the day of purchase because something more sophisticated, with better results, is being introduced. Are you saying that your system will stand the test of time? You did not use the words, but I will — is it a system never to be repeated?

Mr McMahon:
Yes. It is not a hugely complicated system. It is a stand-alone system; it is simply a matter of using electronics to record votes. There is no rocket science in there, but to get it right is tricky.

Mr A Murphy:
In that installation, the emphasis was more on tried-and-tested technology than on leading-edge technology.

The Chairperson:
John, is it correct that you tested the system 100 times?

Mr McMahon:
I might have seemed pedantic in saying that, but I wanted to be absolutely sure that the day after it first went live, there would be no headlines in the papers that read “Fiasco” or “Disaster”.

The Chairperson:
The press would not write such headlines, would they?

Mr McMahon:
I wanted to be absolutely sure that the one-hundred-and-first time that the system was used, which was the first time that it went live, it would work. I was perhaps being pedantic but cautious.

The Chairperson:
During a Division in your House, the bell rings for six minutes to allow Members to get to the Chamber to vote. Is that right?

Mr McMahon:
I will ask my colleagues at the Oireachtas to answer that; they are more proficient in that area.

Ms Bridget Doody (Houses of the Oireachtas):
Yes. The bells are rung for six minutes, and, once they stop ringing, the doors are closed after a further four minutes. Therefore, Members have 10 minutes in which to get to the Chamber before the doors are closed. However, once the doors are closed, no one else can get in to vote.

The Chairperson:
Does that mean that you can get a vote through in —

Ms Doody:
In 11 minutes.

The Chairperson:
I will bring the members into the discussion in a second; I am not trying to exclude them. I would like one point clarified. You said that there was a time-saving factor of five minutes.

Ms Doody:
In the case of a manual vote, the bells are rung for six minutes, and a further four minutes pass before the doors are closed. However, the system of Members lining up, passing through the individual lobbies and the votes being counted manually adds a lot more time to the voting process. Manual voting is just a different voting method, the difference being that, with a manual vote, counting the votes takes longer.

Mr McMahon:
Mr Chairman, you mentioned cost, which is always important. The figures that I gave you are for the total cost: they included costs for all construction work, fees, IT support, and a raft of other provisions. I do not want to give the impression that the system itself cost £1·2 million; that figure covers every aspect of the work, including installation and design.

The Chairperson:
Is that the cost to get it on the road and up and running?

Mr McMahon:
Yes, up and running from scratch — from day one.

Mr K Robinson:
Thank you very much for your presentation. I apologise for arriving late.

We looked at the system in the Scottish Parliament, and, if I remember correctly, it has buttons for yes, no and abstain — and a cancel button for slow learners. Your system has a yes button and a no button. I notice that the buttons are green and red — there is no orange button to allow Members to abstain. [Laughter.]

I hope that that is a practical, not a political, point.

Mr McMahon:
As I said earlier — perhaps before you came in — we use the traffic-light system.

Mr K Robinson:
Yes, but you left one important traffic light out.

I will try to give a synopsis, because I know that we have a lot of business to get through today. The time being gained with the electronic voting system is not as dramatic as we had assumed. Although you made the point in a slightly different way, the theatrical aspect of voting is lost, as is the act of seeing Members going through the motions of democracy as well as Member interaction. Am I right in saying that those are three of the losses?

Mr McMahon:
I cannot quantify the time involved — my colleagues in the Oireachtas will do that. However, the Oireachtas does not use the system for every vote. There are set-stage votes — the big votes of the year — such as that on the Budget.

Ms Doody:
Under our Standing Orders, manual voting must be used for the election of the Prime Minister and the Speaker, for the nomination of Members of Government, and for motions of confidence in the Government.

Mr McMahon:
Those are big, important stage votes.

Mr K Robinson:
Does that mean that the tension and the theatre are maintained to some degree?

Mr McMahon:
It is up to the Members and the House to decide when to use and when not to use the system. It is really a tool for Members.

Mr K Robinson:
What exactly do you mean when you say that it is up to the Members?

Mr McMahon:
It is a decision of the Oireachtas to use the system or not. This is a tool for the House to use for its business.

Mr K Robinson:
In that case, if a Member, or group of Members, decided that the system was not quite carrying out its function, how would they go about changing it?

Mr McMahon:
I gave the wrong impression about that.

The Chairperson:
I think that John is saying that the House can use the system as often as it decides it wants to and for whatever functions it chooses.

Mr McMahon:
That is exactly what I was trying to say.

The Chairperson:
So your system will be able to cope with any circumstance that might arise?

Mr McMahon:
We think so; yes.

The Chairperson:
As Mr Robinson said, the Assembly is slightly different in that there are also parliamentarians in the House who are used to what happens in London, and they are bringing their ideas with them. That is particularly prevalent in my party, where nine parliamentarians are voting in a theatre-like atmosphere, and they will take some convincing that there is another way.

Mr K Robinson:
Let us say that there will be a new batch of parliamentarians at the next election. They may look at the system that we currently have and decide that they want to change it. How do they go about that?

Mr A Murphy:
I noticed that you raised the point about the social aspect of Divisions. The greatest potential obstacle to be overcome when the system was installed was probably the attitude of those Members who were around at that time. We found that, apart from orientation and learning issues that have, admittedly, arisen since new Members have turned up, the greatest obstacle to installation were those Members who were present when the system was installed.

To answer your question about how a group could go about changing the system, it would be through the same mechanism by which electronic voting and other modifications to our procedures came about. There would be representation on the reform Committees.

Mr K Robinson:
We would need a champion to move the process on, if changes were to be decided.

Mr A Murphy:
Precisely; but that situation has not arisen. Equally, when I mentioned the diminution of the social aspects of voting, I was highlighting that as a consideration that you might want to take into account. However, we have not had any negative feedback from our Members. They still gather in the Chamber and spend 10 minutes with each other — admittedly in what was once described as a cattle-mart situation.

Mr K Robinson:
The herd instinct is safe.

Mr W Clarke:
We visited the Scottish Parliament, where all the votes are taken at the end of the day in the order of business. How does that differ in the Dáil?

Mr A Murphy:
The votes continue to be taken as and when they arise. We have not grouped our votes.

Mr W Clarke:
Grouping the votes saved the Scottish Parliament time. MSPs decided to take all their votes at, say, 5.30 pm or 6.00 pm.

Mr A Murphy:
Indeed. Saving time was not heralded as the driving factor in the installation of the system. I mentioned earlier that a modernisation imperative was behind the change: a modern Parliament should be seen to operate in a modern way. Indeed, as the Parliament expands and our parliamentary estate becomes larger, it takes longer for Members to get to the Chamber. The time allowed for Members to get to the Chamber was originally six minutes — three minutes of bell-ringing and three minutes before the doors are locked. That is now running at 10 minutes — six minutes of bell-ringing and four minutes before the doors are locked. This means that the relevant margin of time saved in counting the votes is diminishing all the time relative to the time that we allow for Members to arrive in the Chamber. As time goes on and the parliamentary estate expands, the leverage of time savings becomes less and less.

Ms Doody:
There are time savings on consecutive votes: it takes 10 minutes for the first vote, but if a vote is called immediately thereafter, that time is reduced to three minutes. There are big savings on consecutive votes.

Mr A Murphy:
Unfortunately, that is not attributable to electronic voting; it is simply due to the fact that Members are present in the Chamber and a shorter time can be allowed.

The Chairperson:
Officials in Scotland made the point that there were time efficiencies and savings to be gained by virtue of the fact that they had set time aside for voting. However, if voting were called by the Speaker, as and when the situation arose, the time saved was minimal.

Mr A Murphy:
You are right. Taking votes en bloc is the real contributor to time saving.

Lord Browne:
The Dáil has 166 Members and 166 dedicated seats. The Assembly has only 108 Members. Is there a figure above which you think that time saving can be achieved? There is quite a difference between 108 Members and 166 Members. However, that may be an unfair question.

Mr McMahon:
The time saving is more to do with the geography of the building. We built a new accommodation block for the Members of Dáil Éireann, who were sharing offices, in some cases, up to 10 years ago. Every Member now has his or her own suite of offices. However, as Mr Murphy said, we have had to build those offices some distance away from the Chamber.

Lord Browne:
My question was more about Members going through the Lobbies. Getting 108 Members through the Lobbies will take less time than getting 166 Members through. Is there a magic number whereby electronic voting becomes effective?

Mr A Murphy:
We have not put everyone on a scale, but the Assembly would be in the same domain as the Oireachtas as regards the viability, or added value, of implementing electronic voting systems. Larger Parliaments with between 300 and 600 Members seem to have derived meaningful savings from the counting phase. The real saving in any electronic system is that all the Members can vote simultaneously. Regardless of whether there are 30 or 300 Members voting, the proportionality change is there. The Assembly would get the same level of return in respect of the time it takes Members to go through the Lobbies as the Oireachtas.

Mr Storey:
The presentation has been worthwhile and informative. I understand that all Members have a designated seat, which they must use when voting, but that they can sit anywhere on their party Benches during debates. How do you verify that the person voting is the person who should be sitting in that seat? You have the provision for an identification card system at some stage, if you decide to opt for that, and I do not wish to cast aspersions on Members or suggest that they would do such a thing, but how do you know that John Smith, for instance, is sitting in his designated seat?

Mr A Murphy:
The seating arrangement is tighter than we may have suggested. The seats are allocated along party lines, so you have got that bit. It is easy to see whether there is a red light in the middle of the green lights on the display, or, in the unlikely event of a Member who is present not voting, an unlit lamp, or where there are holes in the seating arrangements that are not matched by holes on the display board. It is not an issue that we have come across at all. Tellers have to look out for those situations. The Tellers tend to rely more on the end result lining up with their expectations, than on who they allowed or saw pass through the Lobbies.

That was one of the reasons why the display board was necessary in the Oireachtas, but it might not be so necessary in other cases such as the Assembly, where Members identify themselves in person but are recorded electronically. The identification of Members in the Oireachtas is more loosely bound; it is contingent on where they are sitting before the vote is recorded. We strengthen that linkage by having a visual display of the expected red, green and abstained results from the seating location. The connection between the Member and their vote, under our new system, is looser than what we had before.

Mr O’Loan:
Do Members like the system? Would anyone suggest rejecting it or not using it?

Mr A Murphy:
No.

Mr O’Loan:
You mentioned not having visual cues. Has there been any confusion amongst Members on which way they are voting, or have there been any embarrassing situations?

Mr A Murphy:
None have been committed to record. If there had, I would not be at liberty to say. As Mr McMahon said, a Member can change his or her vote, and we have seen Members single themselves out as an island of green in a sea of red or vice versa, but they will change back at the last minute.

The Chairperson:
They eventually see the light.

Mr A Murphy:
In the introductory stages of the system there was an element of that. However, an important feature of our voting is that the telling of the vote and the declaration of the result are in the hands of the Tellers. I am not sure if that is what happens in the Assembly, but, in the Oireachtas, the result is agreed by the Tellers before the result is handed to the Speaker for announcement. During that time, there is scope for the reconciliation of genuine errors — as there was under the manual system.

Ms Doody:
The large display panel in the Chamber shows the names of the Tellers for the yes and no votes. Therefore, Members can vote along party lines by following the display.

Mr Brolly:
To what extent would it be true to say that the new system is rather more different than better?

Mr A Murphy:
We went to great efforts to make sure that it would be as similar as possible.

The system is better to the extent that it achieves the objective of modernisation. However, it is not so significantly different that it represents a culture change for our Members. They have moved seamlessly from voting with their feet — on their feet — to voting from their seats. At the same time, however, they have not turned their backs on manual voting. I am not sure whether we mentioned it, but if a Member were dissatisfied with the result of an electronic vote, which occurs frequently, a manual vote would be called immediately. It is difficult to answer the member’s question definitively: the system has been well accepted and well tested in practice.

Mr Brolly:
Given the expense and the adaptations that had to be made to the building, was the change really necessary?

Mr A Murphy:
You might have to ask the visionary himself that question. He was certainly prepared to go out on a limb and push the project to fruition. Necessity aside, it has proved to be a useful and captivating aspect of the parliamentary experience for our Members.

Mr Brolly:
Is it an expensive toy, perhaps?

Mr A Murphy:
I would not go so far as to say that.

The Chairperson:
I think that John mentioned this point in his presentation, but you gave a robust assurance that you had been able to keep at bay architectural vandalism when the work was being done. Leinster House is a piece of valuable built heritage, as is Parliament Buildings. As ours is a listed Building, we would have to consult with the Environment and Heritage Service before any work were done. Are you totally satisfied that, once the work had finished, the building had been fully restored and the installation had been carried out discreetly?

Mr McMahon:
We were lucky in that there was an obvious place for us to hide the panel; behind a curtain. When no vote is taking place, the curtain is closed and the panel is not seen. The technology and all the boxes are hidden in the furniture, and all the wiring and the guts of the system lie underneath the Chamber. Therefore, we have done no injury at all to the Chamber.

The Chairperson:
Tell me more about the curtain. I see it in the picture that you have given to us. I am concerned about this matter because I am curious to know what the Chamber looked like before all the technology was introduced.

Mr McMahon:
There was a curtain there already. The curtain that is there now is almost the same as the previous one.

The Chairperson:
What was the curtain’s function?

Mr McMahon:
It was just decorative. That wall would have been blank otherwise. It was put there to give a bit of definition to the wall. We were lucky that it was there.

Your Chamber has a great deal of panelling, so it would be much trickier to install a large voting panel. I am sure that there are ways in which it could be done; however, it would be a bigger challenge than that which faced us.

The Chairperson:
Have members asked all their questions?

I thank the witnesses for their detailed and comprehensive presentation. The Committee appreciates it and will ponder over the many things that you have said. Have a safe journey home.