Donegal County Council has been urged to review its electoral register after issues came to light in the June local elections.
Concerns have been raised by Independent Councillor Michael McBride, who highlighted instances of polling cards being sent to deceased individuals and adults being registered at addresses where they no longer reside.
Cllr McBride said he feared there was a risk of results being compromised and called for a workshop to scrutinise the methods used to maintain polling card records.
At the Lifford council meeting on Monday, Cllr McBride shared his own experience running in the June local elections and said: “I went to a number of doors when I was out canvassing and some of the people in the homes were distressed that there were polling cards coming in for family members that are long gone. I don’t think it’s acceptable. We need some systems in place to ensure this is not happening in the future.”
Cllr McBride added that some houses around Letterkenny in particular had eight to eleven adults registered to one address “and it’s obvious the people don’t live there”.
“Some may have moved on, I’m sure every circumstance will be different, but we need to do something about it. If you put 11 polling cards out to an address, come election time there is a lot of polling cards lying in houses and it can compromise and may be compromising our election results,” Cllr McBride said.
Cllr McBride also said he believed that there should be a requirement of presenting identification along with polling cards on polling day to verify voter identity.
In response, Paul McGill, Area Manager for Corporate Services, noted that relatives of deceased individuals can assist in updating the register by returning the polling cards to An Post, indicating that the person is deceased.
He explained that the Franchise Unit’s primary focus over the past six months had been to ensure timely processing of registrations for the March Referenda and the June Local and European elections. With the current period of downtime, efforts are ongoing to update the register and make necessary amendments.
Citizens are encouraged to verify and update their own electoral register details at www.checktheregister.ie.
