June elections: The Government's decision to abandon the use of electronic voting in June's elections has meant that thousands of polling station staff around the State have wasted days on training.
The move has been greeted with disappointment: "We were geared up for this, the adrenalin was flowing," one returning officer told The Irish Times. "We have had hundreds of staff involved. We were on the second phase of training with them. We had prepared very well."
Even tallymen appeared to have accepted that they were about to disappear: "Electronic voting will have to happen sometime," said Dublin Mid-West tallyman, Mr Robert McCabe.
"The tally is useful to parties in that it can give a lot of information that we would not be able to get from an electronic count."
Despite considerable teething troubles, returning officers are understood to have been happy to use the new system in the local and European elections.
Two officers, Dublin City Sherriff Mr John Fitzgerald and Meath Council Registrar Ms Maura Teehan, had used the system up to now.
Last month, Mr Fitzgerald and Ms Teehan defended electronic voting, following allegations that serious flaws had emerged during pilot runs in the May 2002 general election.
Leading anti-electronic voting campaigner Mr Joe McCarthy said that 1,294 votes had gone missing in the Dublin North election, while 716 too many had been counted in Dublin West.
However, Mr Fitzgerald then discounted Mr McCarthy's claims and said the errors were due to paperwork errors by polling station staff that did not affect the final result.
"The pilot schemes were there to find problems with the system. They did that, and changes were made," he told The Irish Times last month.
Though happy to use the new system, some returning officers retained doubts on the grounds that it decreased their role in elections. "Up to now, the integrity of returning officers counted for a lot," said Mr Fitzgerald.
The equipment needed to hold traditional elections remains stored - and available for use - since its last outing in the second Nice Treaty referendum.
