84,000 names added to electoral register

More than 84,000 names have been added to the electoral register since last November in the latest effort to update voting lists in advance of the coming election.

Some 77,000 of these people will be entitled to vote in the general election, with foreign nationals who can vote only in local elections accounting for the remaining 7,000 names.

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche last night pronounced the protracted process of updating the register a success and promised that there would be extra checks against electoral fraud on polling day.

"What we've ended up with is the most up-to-date register for a quarter of a century. It's also the best register in Europe at the moment, and the basis for further improvements."

However, he said there was "no doubt" that some voters were still registered more than once.

The process of updating the register began last summer amid concerns that the lists were out of date and open to abuse. However, the removal of more than 500,000 people from the register provoked controversy when many citizens found their name had been wrongly deleted.

After the Department of the Environment estimated that 170,000 of the 500,000 removed could be entitled to vote, Mr Roche gave local authorities further time to update their registers.

According to the provisional figures provided by 31 local authorities, 84,000 names have been added since this process began.

Another four local authorities have yet to submit their figures; when they do, the final size of the electorate is expected to be just over three million.

According to Mr Roche, the process has shown that one out of every four entries on the register was incorrect.

Voters' names were removed only after they had failed to respond to two visits by officials and a registered letter.

He rejected a claim by the Sunday Tribune that the register was still out by 575,000 voters.

This estimate is based on an assumption that only 85 per cent of adults would be registered at any given time, and so the level of over-registration is far greater than the department has allowed.

However, the Minister said there is no reason why up to 95 per cent of people would not be registered.

He promised that one-in-four voters would have their identity checked before being allowed to vote in the election.

Updating the register this time has cost €12 million, twice the normal amount. Mr Roche said this was a small price to pay for improving democracy.

People who wish to check whether their names are on the register can do so on  www.checktheregister.ie. Anyone who finds he or she is not registered can still apply to go on a supplementary register up to two weeks before the election.