Electoral register deadline extended

[David Cochrane]

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has extended the deadline for the completion of a revised electoral register after he received requests from three local authorities to do so.

The Minister, who admitted at the recent Fianna Fáil ardfheis that the electoral register was "a mess", had come under increasing pressure to extend the deadline as county councils throughout the State sought to ensure their registers were up to date.

In a statement this evening, Mr Roche said he would now extend the time for all councils to complete their work until December 29th. - Ireland.com

[brenners']

:twisted: It is extended to the 9th, not the 29th as you have on this page!!

[FutureTaoiseach]

Voters won't make register by election:

Voters won't make register by election

THE electoral register will still be wildly inaccurate at the time of next year's general election, despite Environment Minister Dick Roche's embarrassing U-turn to extend the deadline by two weeks. County Councils around the country are struggling to cope with the level of changes.

It has emerged that the extension to the deadline only came after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern intervened in the controversy which had been on-going for several months. It had earlier been suggested the register would be as much as 20 per cent inaccurate.

Despite the extension, thousands of people who have found they are not on the register after checking the website were last week told by their County Councils that they will not make it on in time as they can't deal with the volume of calls.

According to figures released, parts of Dublin, Cork and Wicklow have seen the highest number of people struck off the register and it is estimated that 170,000 legitimate voters are currently not able to vote.

All last week tales emerged of people trying but failing to get back on the register after discovering they had been struck off.

Indeed, it has also emerged that a number of British subjects living in Ireland have been designated as Irish citizens as a result of the rushed amendments.

Resign Dick...

[KingKane]

This is getting murkier again, apparently, Dick has extended the deadline which people can send back in their forms and also the time that the register has to be done by, but the councils are saying the reason they needed the extra time was to cope with the amount of forms they had received. So that would suggest the councils needed more time to cope with what they had, surely having more again from the public would more they needed more time yet again.

And more interestingly, are the council still deleting people? Say, you checked and you were on the draft but someone decides to delete you from the draft what can you do afterwards and indeed what notification are you given that this had happened?

Anyone who has worked in software development would know that the most straightforward thing to do would be treat the registry as a code repository and ensure that all changes have comment as to why the changes were made. Attribution in terms of who made changes and why they were made is very important in ensuring accountability.

[kerrynorth]

:twisted: It is extended to the 9th, not the 29th as you have on this page!!

David is correct. The Council's have until the 29th to complete the register. December 9th relates to the final date for registration.

[KingKane]

The really murk is that the date for the register being available hasn't changed at all. How much overtime is going to be involved in the Dec 29th deadline for the councils have the register 'completed'? And why are we holding fast to the Feb 1st date for publication? Remember the suggestion that we might have a referendum on the St. Andrews agreement and conspiracy theories around running an election with it? Well, we have a hard date for elections in the north now of March 7th. The minimum time for election campaigns in the south is 21 days (I think I'm right on this) moving back from March 7th that would leave us at Feb 14th, I think. There again March 7th is a wednesday, so it could be March 8th or 9th.

How long does it take to pass the finance bill usually?

[KingKane]

:twisted: It is extended to the 9th, not the 29th as you have on this page!!

David is correct. The Council's have until the 29th to complete the register. December 9th relates to the final date for registration.

But the date for the public is the 9th!

[kerrynorth]

The really murk is that the date for the register being available hasn't changed at all. How much overtime is going to be involved in the Dec 29th line for the councils have the register 'completed'? And why are we holding fast to the Feb 1st date for publication? Remember the suggestion that we might have a referendum on the St. Andrews agreement and conspiracy theories around running an election with it? Well, we have a hard date for elections in the north now of March 7th. The minimum time for election campaigns in the south is 21 days (I think I'm right on this) moving back from March 7th that would leave us at Feb 14th, I think. There again March 7th is a wednesday, so it could be March 8th or 9th.

How long does it take to pass the finance bill usually?

I have been thinking of this possibilty for some time. If not March 7th, how about Friday March 2nd. If you look at the opinion polls they did best early in the year in the afterglow of the budget. Sleepwalk everyone else into thinking late May and strike out in February for an early March election. Classic. I just cannot see Bertie not taking the opportunity of stretching SF with elections on both sides of the Border. The most cunning the most devious of them all as CJH would say!

[FutureTaoiseach]

Part of the problem judging by todays Independent is that the council electoral people only visited 1.25 million homes compared to 1.8 million visited by the CSO in the census. Furthermore only €12 million was spent on 'correcting' the register compared to €25 million on the Census. Discrepances include abnormally high numbers on the register in Donegal and Louth while up to a third of adults in the cities are not on the register. Meanwhile it's confirmed in the Indo that the online register was last updated on Nov 1st and is unlikely to be updated again, meaning that people who could be on the register are finding they are not according to the online register. For the umpteenth time Bertie will you sack Roche he is by far the worst minister in this govt and could end up costing you the election - not because of who people want in govt - but because FF-PD voters won't be able to vote.

[barrym]

And more interestingly, are the council still deleting people? Say, you checked and you were on the draft but someone decides to delete you from the draft what can you do afterwards and indeed what notification are you given that this had happened?

Anyone who has worked in software development would know that the most straightforward thing to do would be treat the registry as a code repository and ensure that all changes have comment as to why the changes were made. Attribution in terms of who made changes and why they were made is very important in ensuring accountability.

Did anyone hear that gobsh*** on Kenny this morning (I am in France but get RTE on the satellite) - he bulsh***ed his way through a very accurate and not too cynical piece in this mornings Indo and crapped on about nobody being disenfranchised, blady, bla.

I would agree with the comments above about 'anyone who has worked... but that surely doesn't apply to any one in the Dept of the E or anyone in a position of resp ina CoCo.....

The whole methodology by which the present government and the civil service who are supposed to advise it deals with data is a shambles. Is it beyond the wit of them all to create a set of linked files - if you move, for example, you tell the Post and others, if you die, your death is supposed to be registered, etc., etc., so that your democratic right to vote can be maintained, or not if your dead! Roche rabbited on this morning concerning 'not requring registration,....' but the whole system could be put the other way round - you are not required to vote and if you don't want to be registered (Roche mentioned 'some people don't want to - I wonder how many that is....?) then you can take your name off.

I simply don't understand why pols don't turn things to their and the punters advantage by saying things like - you cannot get benefits unless you have a PPS number, OK? If you wish we can use that info to put you on the voters Register, sort out your driving license (and the points that go on it....) make sure you are registered as dead, etc. If your a PD you can say, quietly, to your supporters, we can use the data to control the immigrants.... and so on.... No, it is always put the other way round, we cannot use the PPS, we cannot force you to be registered..... and so on.

Finally, no matter what way we do it how can the country hold itself up as the centre of the information and knowledge economy when we can't manage to get a a couple of million people on to a register......

Bye, Barry