Voters express anger at exclusion from register

A number of councillors have received complaints from people who arrived at polling stations to be told they weren’t on the Register of Electors.

Cllr Eileen Mannion was the first to flag the problem at this week’s County Council meeting and a number of other councillors around the chamber had similar stories.

Cllr Mannion accepted that the Local Authority had provided an opportunity for people to check the Register not once but twice last month coming up to polling day but a number of people who had been on the Register previously found that they weren’t for the General Election.

“People do assume once they are on the Register for Electors that they are on it forever but obviously the message from here for people to check it regularly is not getting through,” she said.

Some people had also contacted Cllr Mary Hoade, she said, people who had had a vote for the last Referendum had been taken off since.

Michael Owens, Council Secretary, said that there was an annual process to remove people from the register but that letters were always sent out advising people of the proposed removal and that they had two supplementary lists organised once the General Election was called.

But Cllr Frank Kearney said a person had called him on Friday with the same story and that that man hadn’t received any letter warning him he was being taken off the Register.

A motion proposed by Cllr Jim Cuddy and seconded by Cllr Joe Byrne asking the Department of the Environment to automatically put children on the Register once they reach the age of 18 and to remove the names of people once a death cert has been produced was adopted.