Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 July 2004
323 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he has proposals to introduce legislation with a view to ensuring that electoral registers are more accurate and that existing voters are not removed therefrom without notice to them. [20773/04]
View answerThe compilation and publication of the register is a matter for each registration authority in accordance with electoral law and involves the carrying out of house-to-house or other local inquiries and in many cases delivering registration forms to households for completion. The draft register is published on 1 November annually and is made available for examination by the public at post offices, public libraries, Garda stations, courthouses and local authority offices up to 25 November. The public are invited, through national and local advertising campaigns, to check the draft during this period to ensure that they are correctly registered and to bring errors or omissions in the draft to the attention of the registration authority. The final register is published on 1 February and comes into force for a year on 15 February. Electoral law also provides for the updating of the register through the supplement facility in the run-up to polls.
When removing electors from the register authorities are required, by a ministerial instruction issued under section 18 of the Electoral Act 1992, to send a notice to a person whose name it is proposed to omit from the draft register indicating that they have failed to establish that the person is still resident at the address and unless evidence to the contrary is provided within ten days, his or her name will be removed. In addition, any person may claim to have a correction made to the draft register following its publication. The claim must be made to the registration authority by 25 November and it may include, in particular, a claim to have the name of a person added or deleted. Such claims are ruled on, in public, by the appropriate county registrar and interested parties must be given notice of the time and location of the proposed hearing. An appeal may be made in the Circuit Court on the decision of a county registrar.
After the final register comes into force, a person's name can only be removed if he or she has applied successfully for entry on the supplement to the register as a result of a change of residence, which can be within the constituency or to another constituency. In such cases, the person's name on the register in respect of their previous address is deleted and they are registered at their new address.
I wish to ensure that the register of electors used at any poll should be as accurate as possible and there have been a number of changes in recent years which have helped to improve its accuracy. The Electoral (Amendment) Act 2001 included new provisions to allow persons who have moved residence to another constituency or to another electoral area in a constituency during the currency of a register or who will reach 18 years of age on or before polling day to apply for entry in the supplement to the register. The Act also provides that persons who are unable to vote in their constituencies because of their employment by a returning officer in another constituency on polling day are eligible to apply for entry in the supplement to the postal voters list. Notwithstanding these reforms of the administrative and legal arrangements for compiling the register of electors, the continued improvement of the register is still an important concern and I intend to monitor its progress closely.
