Election register - Reform must ne handled with care

“VOTE early and often” - the cynical adage about Irish elections may be consigned to history but the system is still wide open to exploitation judging by the number of “ghost voters” on the electoral register.

An astonishing figure of more than 300,000 phantom voters is cited in today’s Irish Examiner interview with Environment Minister Dick Roche. The revelation that this large bloc of would-be voters exists is politically mind boggling.

According to Mr Roche, the electoral system is in an appalling mess that was tolerated for too long and he plans to introduce new guidelines over the autumn aimed at cleaning up the register and resolving the numbers anomaly.