I move:
That Dáil Éireann approves of the following regulations in draft:
Local Elections (Postal Voting) (Amendment) Regulations, 1985
a copy of which regulations in draft form was laid before Dáil Éireann on the 25th day of February, 1985.
These draft regulations are laid before the House in accordance with section 82 (5) of the Electoral Act, 1963, which provides that, where regulations under that section are proposed to be made, a draft thereof shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and that the regulations shall not be made until a resolution approving of the draft has been passed by each House.
Postal voting has been discussed by this House on a number of occasions in the past few years and Members will be familiar with the subject. It is not, therefore, necessary for me to detain the House unduly with a detailed outline of the background; I will be brief and deal only with essential points in this introductory statement.
As I have indicated to the House previously, I am having a Bill prepared which will provide for postal voting at all elections and referenda. The Bill, which takes account of the views expressed by Deputies and Senators in the various debates in both Houses and in the Joint Committee on Legislation, will entitle certain categories of persons to be registered in the register of electors as postal voters. Persons so registered will vote by post at any election which takes place during the currency of the register.
The registration of postal voters will be carried out as a normal part of the procedure of compiling the register of electors. This takes place between September and December each year and I will be bringing forward the legislation as soon as possible so as to ensure that the new system will be in place in time for the 1986 register. In the meantime, the draft regulations now before the House will bring the postal voting system to be used at the local elections in June into line as far as practicable with the permanent arrangements proposed under the Bill.
Postal voting for categories other than the Garda and the Defence Forces was introduced for the 1974 local elections by the Local Elections (Postal Voting) Regulations, 1974. Under those regulations, anybody who could not vote in person by reason of the circumstances of his occupation, service, or employment, absence from the place in respect of which he was registered as an elector, illness or physical disability, or his employment by a returning officer, could apply to vote by post.
The 1974 elections have been our only experiment with the extended postal voting system: it was not used for the local elections in 1979 because they were held with the European Assembly elections. It was considered that it would not be practicable to run two elections together with different postal voting systems.
From an administrative point of view the system worked satisfactorily in 1974 but many public representatives had reservations about the security of the system. Nevertheless, it is essential that those who, for genuine reasons, cannot vote in person should be catered for. What we are trying to do in these regulations therefore, and in the Bill, is to provide a system of postal voting which will minimise the risk of abuses, while continuing to provide a simple and accessible facility. I will now outline briefly the principal changes which the regulations will effect.
The regulations will effect changes in key areas — they will restrict somewhat the categories of persons who will qualify to vote by post; they will build safeguards into the application procedure, and they will improve the security of ballot papers being issued to voters.
Under the draft regulations the persons who will be entitled to vote by post at the local elections will be those who will be unable, or are likely to be unable, to vote in person by reason of (a) the circumstances of their occupation, service or employment, or (b) physical illness or physical disability. This is a narrower range of eligibility than applied in 1974 but I believe that those with a genuine claim to a postal vote will be catered for under the regulations. The electors being catered for are those recommended by the Joint Committee, except for diplomats and certain other categories resident abroad who cannot be registered as electors under existing law. These will be dealt with in the Bill.
The application procedure is also being tightened up. The time for making applications will be earlier — from 15 to 30 April. This takes the processing of applications out of the peak period of preelection activity and gives the returning officer the opportunity and time to thoroughly evaluate and investigate applications. In addition, applications will now have to be independently supported by a certificate from an employer or medical practitioner or by a statutory declaration where a person is self-employed. This will obviously impose a certain burden but we are satisfied that it is essential for the security of the electoral system. Finally, the returning officer will be empowered to seek additional information for the purpose of satisfying himself that an applicant is a qualified person and to reject an application where such information is not forthcoming.
The other area which has been identified as being open to abuse is the actual issue of ballot papers to voters by post. This, too, is being dealt with. Under the regulations, all ballot papers will be sent to voters by registered post. This means that a signature must be received by the postal authorities for every ballot paper entrusted to them for delivery, a procedure which should help considerably to ensure that the ballot papers get into the correct hands. It should also help to trace the culprits if ballot papers are interfered with.
That is all I wish to say about the regulations themselves. I believe that the controls we are proposing are the absolute minimum which we could accept if the security of the electoral system is to be protected. The facility of postal voting is a privilege; the position is that the Houses of the Oireachtas are being asked to extend this privilege to certain categories. The concession carries a risk of serious damage to the electoral system and there is the obligation to protect against that by all reasonable means. I think the regulations strike a reasonable balance between availability and control.
I ask the House to support the motion.
