Adams demands resignation of chief electoral officer

Northern Ireland’s chief electoral officer Denis Stanley was tonight urged to resign after Sinn Féin claimed a report has revealed concerns about how the voter register was compiled.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said an equality impact assessment for the Electoral Office on its annual registration process had uncovered possible religious and political discrimination among some canvassers.

“Sinn Féin has already raised this matter with the Equality Commission,” Mr Adams said. “We intend pursuing this matter with the British and Irish governments.

“The Chief Electoral officer Dennis Stanley should resign and allow a new chief executive to get to grips with the serious problems which exist within that organisation.”

Last November the British government announced it was ending the practice of rolling registration which forces people in Northern Ireland to fill in forms each year to secure their vote at each election.

The need to register each year was introduced by the Electoral Fraud Act 2002.

Sinn Féin has repeatedly expressed concern that the process had confused and disenfranchised thousands of people.

Mr Adams said there was evidence that young people were under-represented on the electoral lists and the registration system had impacted badly n deprived Catholic neighbourhoods.

He added: “More significantly, the Electoral Office has admitted that some of its canvassers may have discriminated against households and individuals on the grounds of their religious belief and political opinion, ‘That the approach to the conduct of the annual canvass in preparing and maintaining the electoral register could have an adverse impact on some people on the grounds of their religious belief i.e. failing to canvas households whose occupants held different religious beliefs from those of the canvasser.

“On political opinion the Electoral Office concludes that ‘it was possible that there could be discrimination by some electoral canvassers on the grounds of political opinion, i.e. failing to canvass electors who held different political opinions from those of the canvasser’.”

Mr Adams called on the province’s Electoral Office to publish the recommendations it had made regarding changes to the registration process, in advance of any further drive this autumn.

Mr Stanley could not be contacted tonight to comment on Mr Adams’s claims.

A spokesman for the Equality Commission was unavailable for comment.