Readers Blog: Government must tackle electoral register
The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claims “Turkey has given a lesson in democracy to the entire world,” pointing to an 88% election turnout.
Now what would an 88% turnout look like for Ireland? There would be by-location at a rate that would put St Martin de Porres in the shade, with the dead rising also to cast votes given that the electoral register is full of double/non-residents entries and those already buried in our cemeteries still receiving polling cards.
It would actually be impossible to have even an 80% turnout in Irish elections if you take what Fine Gael said in a submission in 2013 for an electoral commission admitting the electoral register was around 30% inaccurate.
The shocking thing about this is that there has been no judicial inquiry called to review this situation, if there was it would be clear that holding any election or referendum at this stage would be contrary to “one man, one vote” in our Constitution, the very cornerstone of our democracy.
The only answer to the problem would be to have the register pegged with the PPS numbers and compiled
centrally to eliminate double entries.
Why this is not part of the agenda for the Government is baffling? The OECD in 2017 ranked Ireland along with Guatemala of the countries with most inaccuracies and errors in electoral registers. This is quite embarrassing for any first-world country.
