County Council is conducting a data clean up of Tipperary's Electoral Register

Tipperary County Council is conducting a “data clean up” of incorrect and duplicate information on the Electoral Register as a busy period of elections and referenda votes approaches, councillors were informed at their monthly meeting.

The council is in the midst of a two-year campaign to remove duplicate names, deceased electors and so called “dummy dwellings” from the Register and ensure the council has identification and contact information for every voter.

Senior Executive Officer in the Council’s Corporate Affairs Section Ger Walsh gave a presentation to councillors on efforts to update the Electoral Register at the Council’s January meeting in Clonmel.

He told them a lot of work needs to be done to clean up the Electoral Register to improve its accuracy as they faced into a busy period with two referenda and the Local and EU elections this year and the General Election by March next year.

Leaflet drop
Mr Walsh outlined how the council did a major information leaflet drop to every household in the county last year about updating the Electoral Register.

The Council did another information campaign at the Ploughing Championships the same month and followed up with a social media campaign in October.

Letters were sent to all voters with duplicate listings in the Electoral Register on October 31 requesting them to contact the council and update and correct the Register.

The Council also sent letters about updating and correcting the Electoral Register to the 11,653 voters in Carrick-on-Suir Local Electoral Area in the final three months of last year.

Mr Walsh said they planned to write out to voters in the county’s other Local Electoral Areas after the Local and EU Elections as they received the “biggest bounce” from the Carrick LEA letters.

In addition to correcting and update the Electoral Register, the Council is also asking voters to provide extra contact and identification information including their Eircode, PPSN, email address, contact phone number and date of birth.

The reason the council required this information was to enable it to confirms voters details and help protect the integrity of the Electoral Register.

He pointed out that if an elector doesn’t wish to provide their PPSN for the Electoral Register then they must complete a form that is witnessed.

Mr Walsh assured councillors that the council made three attempts to contact a person before removing their name from the Electoral Register.

Carrick-on-Suir Sinn Féin Cllr David Dunne said this data clean up campaign was “very, very welcome” as he considered the Electoral Register to be a “joke” over the last number of years due to the amount of duplicate names.

“I know someone who had three different votes in three different areas,” he revealed.

Postal voting

He and Cllr Máirín McGrath advocated for people who will be on holidays in June and miss the Local and EU elections to be able to vote by post before they leave.

Cllr McGrath said when they updated the Electoral Reform Act in 2022 a lot more people should have been facilitated to post their vote. It was a missed opportunity.

She said it was a shame the Local Elections are taking place in June as not only was it the summer holiday period but the season when many college students went to the US on JI visas

This needed to be addressed nationally as people going on holiday were disenfranchised, she declared.

Mr Walsh said the Council had no control over postal voting and pointed out the Electoral Reform Act was very specific about who is entitled to a postal vote, namely Gardaí, members of the Defence Forces, diplomats, people who are ill and disabled and students attending college in a location away from their home.

Upcoming deadline dates for getting on the Electoral Register 

• February 20 is the deadline for receipt of applications to be included on Tipperary’s Electoral Register in time to vote in the two referenda proposing changes to Article 41 of the Constitution concerning the Family on March 8.
• The deadline for postal voter and special voter applications is Sunday, February 11.
• The cut off for receipt of applications to join the Electoral Register to vote in the Local and European Elections expected will be between May 19 and May 22 depending on polling date announced, which is expected to be between June 6 and 9.
• The final day for submission of postal and special voter applications to join the Electoral Register in order to vote in these two elections will be 22 days before the poll.
• Hard copy forms to register to vote are available from Tipperary County Council offices around the county and are available via: Tipperary County Council website: www.tipperarycoco.ie or by visiting www.checktheregister.ie.
  
• Queries can be sent to francise@tipperarycoco.ie or tel: 0818065000.