18,000 voters added to electoral roll

REGISTER OF ELECTORS: MORE THAN 18,000 people have been placed on the supplement to the Register of Electors in the last four…

REGISTER OF ELECTORS:MORE THAN 18,000 people have been placed on the supplement to the Register of Electors in the last four months.

A total of 18,090 late registrations were made by the State's five city councils and 29 county councils between February 15th and May 26th. The 2008/2009 register of electors, which was published in mid-February, had 3,051,278 voters.

Electoral analyst Odran Flynn said the addition of 18,000 people was "a little bit more than you would expect". "It's the figures that you would get in a general election year or in a local election year. I know that the political parties have been pushing to register more non-national voters because they are entitled to vote in the local elections next year," he said.

Under l legislation, persons not included on the list published in February could apply to their local authority to be included on the supplement, before May 26th.

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Limerick City Council had 5,146 additions to the supplement, the most of any local authority. An extension to its boundary which came into effect on March 1st accounted for this position.

Dublin City Council, which covers five city centre constituencies, had the second highest number of additions to its supplement, with 4,744 new voters.

Cork had the third highest numbers of new registrations with 455 and 796 for the City Council and County Council respectively. Leitrim County Council added the fewest new voters - 48.