INFORMATION MINISTER Senator Burchell Whiteman said yesterday that electronic voting in other countries has failed to impress, and, therefore, government has no plans to bring such a system to this country.
"We are not about to introduce electronic voting in Jamaica. The experience elsewhere has not filled us, at least certainly has not filled me, with any degree of confidence in systems of electronic voting," Senator Whiteman said during yesterday's sitting of the Senate.
Senator Whiteman, leader of government business, was piloting three bills to introduce electronic fingerprint voter identification into law.
The amendments to the Parish Councils Act, the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation Act and the Representation of the People Act, were already passed in the House of Representatives.
Senator Whiteman took the opportunity to correct what he said was the misconception that the legislation related to the introduction of electronic voting.
A pilot of the electronic finger print voter identification system was run during the 2003 Local Government Election in two KSAC constituencies. The system identifies the voter through his fingerprints before issuing a ballot.
The vote itself will continue to be conducted manually.
But during yesterday's debate, Senator Anthony Johnson, leader of Opposition business, took issue with the Government's stance on electronic voting.
"I can advise (Senator Whiteman) that I suspect he has been the victim of a tremendous propaganda campaign in a recent election in a nearby country where persons expected one candidate to win," Senator Johnson said in apparent reference to last year's United States presidential election.
"The candidate didn't win so they claimed that it was because they corrupted the electronic voting system."
Senator Johnson argued that systems of electronic voting are extremely well developed and, whenever deficiencies are found, checked thoroughly.
He noted that last year's election in India was completed in a very short time with few if any reports of breaches of the system.
R.H.
