I think that she probably gave the only answer on e-voting that she could really. And the tone of the show was very light e.g. how does she get on with Bertie, what's it like being a woman politician, etc. She even said that she was surprised at the easy time she was getting. She said that she has a personal bias in favour of the manual system, that as a candidate she's not ready for instant results, and it wouldn't have been her choice to give e-voting priority. But the govt took a collective decision to do so - question then could have been why did her party go along with it - and she's waiting for the results of the investigating committee on 1 May. She disagreed with Shane that e-voting per se cannot be trustworthy and gave the example of her parents not trusting credit cards.
But, Shane made a mistake by trying to interrupt her twice before she had finished her answer. Up to that point, he was the only caller not to be kept on the line. It would have been good if he could have come back on the credit card example. I don't know, of course, but I think that if he had held back with interrupting, he might have got a right of reply.
Teresa
Oh well, at least we got the opportunity to pre-bake some questions should we get a similar opportunity in the future. I suggest those in Ireland keep an eye/ear out for opportunities to phone in and raise these issues on-air. I think the key, as always, is to keep it short and simple. *fact* *fact* *question* is much more effective than *fact* *fact* *opinion* *fact* *question* because then they can ignore the facts you state while responding to your opinion.
Shane Hogan, who contributes to the ICTE mailing list, *did* get to ask a question about the startling revelations regarding discrepancies in the pilot runs of the electronic voting system in 2002. Ms. Harney obviously wasn't prepared for that one and fudged her answer, in my opinion. Dave McWilliams handled it well for her by changing the subject once it became obvious that she didn't want to talk about it.
I think it is all about keeping up the pressure to remind them that people do care about this. You are never going to get a politician to admit they are wrong or change their position on-air, the best you can do is make them uncomfortable.
Ian.
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