John Bowman, who will anchor RTÉ television's election coverage, argues that manual voting is a unique opportunity to see democracy in action.
Perhaps I should begin with a declaration of interest. Nothing in my broadcasting experience equals the challenge of an election results marathon. Multi-seat PR presents so many conundrums on election night that an election here is infinitely less predictable than its British or American equivalent.
In our system there are invariably new mysteries to solve and unanticipated questions to answer as each constituency story unfolds.
Who are the newcomers who have - in Basil Chubb's phrase - been "running about persecuting civil servants" and whose reward is to pinch the seat of a senior colleague, perhaps even a minister?
And - to avoid such a fate - who are the enemies of promise who have managed to keep talented newcomers off the party ticket, lest they become challengers in future elections?
Who are the quiet quota-builders who haven't won this time but have given notice of their intention to represent the constituency in the future? And who are the quota-squatters who failed to obey party headquarters' instructions to shed some of their vote to weaker running mates, and so failed to challenge for an extra seat for the party?
The clues to the answers are embedded in the election statistics as they become available during the marathon count.
A recent development in election results programmes is the exit poll. Just as a PR election gives us an enormous amount of information on how the country votes, the exit poll attempts to answer why electors voted as they did. Where British election counts could be likened to 600 games of draughts - with the outcome in two-thirds of them a foregone conclusion - attempting to predict who will win the final seat in an Irish election can be akin to playing 43 simultaneous chess matches.
It should also be said that RTÉ's development of its election results programme has coincided with by far the most exciting period in Irish electoral history.
In the general elections of the 1970s, 80s and 90s every outgoing government lost the election. Some might point to Haughey's retention of the taoiseach's office in the 1989 election as an exception to this rule: but was not the embracing of what was then heresy for Fianna Fáil of acquiescing in a coalition arrangement not an even bigger change? And the first tentative kite-flying about such an unlikely government took place in the television studios on election night.
There is a buzz about election campaigns and outcomes which is important to our democratic culture.
I can recall my first interest in election outcomes; and it was not watching a sophisticated television programme. Rather was it akin to watching paint dry. I was a schoolboy on the top of the No 10 bus which passed what amounted to a large election scoreboard - rather like an old-fashioned cricket scoreboard - and which festooned The Irish Times building during the 1957 election. Going and coming from school I kept a notebook of the changing results.
I was hooked from that moment.
Today's school pupils are luckier. The election is a noisy marketplace and there is more media coverage than ever. I believe that among the benefits of the traditional pencil and ballot paper system should be the fact that for many younger citizens their initial interest in politics is often kindled by the excitement generated by RTÉ's results coverage. Over the years many party activists have told me that this was what brought them into politics.
On election day the nation votes and on count day the nation waits to learn what it has collectively decided. This is an awesome moment and for as long as we are without electronic voting machines it will remain a slow moment. There is a case to be made that it should remain a slow moment.
It is worth noting the growing appreciation in many countries that the communal involvement of the electorate as they witness the outcome of an election is itself a significant phenomenon - especially when we hear so much talk of political apathy. Google "election night party" and you'll have a choice of over six million hits. One restaurant in San Francisco offered an incentive to diners to watch the last US presidential election results while they dined, with a four dollar reduction "if you have proof that you voted".
But the assumption in Ireland up to recently is that marathon election counts may soon be a thing of the past. If electronic voting is introduced it will be possible to pull a lever and show the final result in a matter of minutes. This is now much less certain, given the row over the e-voting machines which were piloted in 2002 and whose software has since been shown to be woefully inadequate.
Yet there was little scepticism or scrutiny of the initial proposals for e-voting from within Dáil Éireann. Most of the concentration was on whether technophobes among the electorate would be able to manage the voting machines. When that proved not to be a problem most politicians seemed agreed that it was only a matter of time before electronic voting would become commonplace. This consensus is evaporating.
Public confidence in e-voting has been severely dented. One man can take much of the credit, Joe McCarthy, the computer engineer to whom Irish democracy owes a special indebtedness for his forensic investigation into the electronic voting system piloted in three constituencies in 2002.
The Progressive Democrats voted at their 2006 annual conference to abandon electronic voting. Michael McDowell has admitted that he is not "mad keen" on it and has a personal preference for paper ballots. "I regard the paper system as having a lot of merit. People trust it and understand it, and watching extended counts on television is educational. These are all merits that shouldn't be forgotten."
No doubt there are many viewers who enjoy the drama - and blood-letting - of the election count more than the campaign: just as there are some who enjoy the count more than the songs in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Some would consider my arguments here as Luddite. But there are many matters in life where we do not take a utilitarian approach. We solemnise many events, marriages, funerals, presidential inaugurations, school prize-givings and many others with rituals which oblige us to take time and give due recognition to an important moment.
Is there not a strong case to be made that we should equally pay homage to the ritual of having one's vote counted - and to the important Irish variant of seeking to give that vote expression in later counts? Does this not deserve the nation's attention for 24 hours while the larger question at the heart of every election is in the balance: who governs next?
As Joe McCarthy has said: "The count is a public spectacle: the exercise of democracy shouldn't be a secret."
• John Bowman is a broadcaster, political scientist and historian. He has participated in RTÉ election and referendum results coverage since 1969. He anchored the 1981-82 results programme on radio and has been co-anchor of the television coverage since then. He contributed Reminiscences of an on-the-run psephologist to RTÉ's The Election Book edited by Tom Maguire, recently published by the O'Brien Press. With Miriam O'Callaghan, Bryan Dobson and Mark Little he will present Election 2007 on RTÉ 1 television from 11am today until tomorrow afternoon