Electronic voting will be safer, more accurate and faster, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr Cullen, has said.
More than 7,000 voting machines will be used in 3,000 polling stations for the local and European Parliament elections on June 9th, backed by a €4.5 million public information campaign.
Some 400,000 people in seven constituencies used the NEDAP/Powervote machines in the 2002 general election and the Nice Treaty referendum.
"Ours is a good system for administering elections. It is run completely independently of politics and it deals well with a complex voting system. But it is a system that is far from perfect.
"The people who claim that we should leave everything as it has been since the foundation of the State are ignoring obvious deficiencies," the Minister added.
A series of regional launches and briefing sessions will start later this week, while a national road show will visit every constituency beginning from April 26th.
Defending the handling of the issue, Mr Cullen said: "Ireland has adopted a cautious and sensible approach to the introduction of electronic voting and counts. Over the last number of years we gently put our toes into the water.
"This is a system that has been proven to work. There has been no difficulty with the system. Therefore, I am absolutely confident that it will work," he said.
Electronic voting will allow votes to be counted shortly after the polls close once computer files from the voting machines are sent by escorted courier to constituency count centres.
Counting could begin within an hour in urban constituencies, though rural constituencies, such as Mayo, would take some hours longer to begin.
Once counting begins, individual counts will be announced "probably at 10 to 15 minute intervals" to allow politicians, the public and the media time to digest the results.
"You have to give people time to absorb each count before moving on to the next, even though the technology allows everything to be done in seconds," Mr Cullen said.
Rejecting criticism from the Opposition about the system's security, the Minister said a paper record of each vote cast could not be kept.
The NEDAP/Powervote system, which is already in operation in Germany and the Netherlands, will be able to give a printed record of all votes cast.
"We have never had a dual system. This equipment has been tested nationally and internationally. It has been demonstrated to work," he declared firmly.
"Anybody who believes in democracy should want to improve this system and it should be a key priority for any Government to make sure that every vote is counted and counted accurately."
The voting machines, which will be programmed in advance to display the appropriate ballot papers, will be tamper-proof, according to Department officials.
Seemingly concerned about the reception for the roll-out of electronic voting, the Minister said: "This is what the Oireachtas has chosen to do. This isn't some sort of zealot approach to the system on my behalf. I was charged with responsibility for this issue, voted on by the Oireachtas.
"We can go on in this vein for ever. If you are asking me is there any possibility in any system of something going wrong, I don't think that there is anything in this world that has achieved that level of perfection," he said.
However, the machines and computers used to programme them will not be connected to the Internet, and thus not at risk of being hacked, Department officials insisted. Voters' experience of the system so far had been positive, they said.
