Call for mobilisation of young people to register to vote

A special campaign should be established to encourage second-level students to sign up to the electoral register, the Referendum Commission has advised.

The commission has recommended that school-goers be targeted to capitalise on the significant turnout of young people in the recent marriage equality referendum.

Irish Second-Level Students’ Union president Rob O’Donnell said: “This is something that we have been working on, we encourage students to register, especially sixth-year students, when we go into school.”

This was echoed by the National Youth Council of Ireland, which said: “We definitely think the May referendum had a very strong youth engagement with great work done. The State has a duty to ensure that all ages, young and old, get out to vote.”

Turnout for the referendum in May was in excess of 60% — the highest since the commission was set up.

On Thursday, the Presidential Commission signed the Marriage Bill 2015 into law, allowing for marriages between gay couples for the first time in Ireland.

The report into the marriage equality referendum and vote on age of presidential candidates found: “While this was extremely encouraging, there is a clear and urgent need for an ongoing campaign among young people — perhaps aimed at second-level schools — to encourage voter registration and voting by young people.”

As the commission is currently only given a budget to promote upcoming referenda it would have to seek authority to carry out this work. The Department of the Environment would have to sign off on any changes in remit.

The commission said “this work could only be done by the Referendum Commission if it had an appropriate statutory remit and a continuing legal existence”.

The report found that low voter turnout — especially among young people — for constitutional referenda has been “a matter of serious concern to previous commissions” although for certain issues like the marriage vote, and where the poll coincides with a national or local election, numbers can increase.

“However, the recent referendums showed that there was significant engagement by young people in the subject matter of the marriage referendum in particular and this was reflected in the high voter turnout. It has been suggested that the Electoral Commission could have responsibility for mobilising voter registration and voter turnout at all elections as well as referendums. Publicly funded mobilisation of turnout is currently limited to advertisements put out by the Referendum Commission at referendums.”

The commission, chaired by Mr Justice Kevin Cross, believes mobilisation of voter turnout should also be extended to all elections.