Madam, – As a UK elector and resident, I have just received an explanatory booklet from our Electoral Commission about the forthcoming national referendum on voting reform. I was surprised to find that, on page 9, a list of “those eligible to vote” shows, among others, “Citizens of the Irish Republic”, and it does not add “resident in the UK”, which is what I would have expected.
How many of the Republic of Ireland’s citizens, or 3,110,914 electors at the last count, are aware of that right, and what has been done, if anything, to facilitate their participation in this potentially important constitutional UK change? Have they received an explanatory booklet similar to the one which I have received? If not, why not? My surprise is because this seems to have been the case for several decades, although I had never heard of it before.
Perhaps some expert on your side of the water could enlighten us all? Alternatively, perhaps this was just yet another bureaucratic blunder by someone at this end! – Yours, etc,