Study to reveal scale of dead people and others not eligible to vote on electoral registers

The Local Authority ledgers include the names of many dead and others who have emigrated, or else moved elsewhere in Ireland and re-registered there.

Ireland does not have a single national electoral register, although one is planned. It will first involve the harnessing of all others before a winnowing process can take place.

Ireland has 31 separate electoral registers which are individually maintained by the same number of city and county councils.

The Electoral Commission (An Coimisiún Toghcháin) has a statutory role for “setting standards” under the Electoral Reform Act 2022.

There was an expectation among politicians when it was set up that it would make haste to assemble a new single register to rule them all.

But the Commission first oversaw the Family and Care referendums from last year, then the Local and European elections, and finally the November General Election in a crowded 2024.

The body was tasked to report on the status, functioning, completeness and accuracy of the 31 electoral registers, and is finally reporting today.

It is expected to outline a catalogue of duplications, deceased electors, errors and omissions, along with a roadmap to reform that could involve a new identified for every individual elector for better reflection of eligibility until the expiry of that entitlement.

An oversight report will set out the current state of the electoral registers on a national level. It will also reflect on their management and maintenance, with some more actively groomed than others.

Accuracy and completeness is of paramount importance to politicians and the political system alike, if only to guard against personation.

An old joke from Northern Ireland politics was that the dead voting was not too bad, but when they voted over and over in different polling stations it became a bit rich.

Based on data reported by each local authority, the report will include individual assessments of each of the 31 registers around the country.

In its report An Coimisiún makes a number of recommendations to address issues associated with accuracy and completeness, and the challenges facing those charged with the management and maintenance of the registers.

This is the first such oversight report, future reports will be published annually – suggesting the clean-up of registers is about to get under way.

It also raises the issue of councils communicating with each other when electors move to a new area to ensure they only ever have one vote within the State.

The Electoral Commission was established in February 2023. It also makes reports on the boundaries of constituencies for the election of members to the Dáil and the European Parliament.

It also has a role in promoting public awareness of the proper workings of democracy and how to vote, as well as increased public participation.