Dublin City voters will have correct information before polling day

All of the estimated 35,000 voters in the Dublin City Council area who were issued with incorrect polling information for tomorrow’s referendums will have received letters from the local authority by this morning with the correct information, the council has said.

The error has affected an estimated 10 per cent of voters in the Dublin city area who received incorrect or inaccurate information after a council employee failed to update a computer file.

A council spokesman said the Electoral Act precluded it from issuing new polling cards as they “cannot be issued three or fewer days before polling day”. Instead, letters were posted advising those affected as to their electoral number and the correct location at which to cast their vote.

Contingency plans were being put in place for anybody who had not received the correct information by voting day, but the spokesman said last night all of those affected had been identified and about 35,000 letters had been sent with the correct information.

He said the council had not yet calculated the cost as the “priority has been rectifying the error”.

“We have focused on this since becoming aware of it on Monday afternoon. There is obviously a cost in issuing the letters. This cost was a necessary part of rectifying the error.”

The spokesman said there would be a “review of procedures” but added: “Dublin City Council has a very strong record in the dispatching of accurate polling card information and in maintaining the register of electors. We are confident that an error of this nature will not happen again.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Referendum Commission has confirmed it has received almost 50 complaints from members of the public in relation to non-receipt of leaflets and information relating to the two referendums.

He said the complaints were “country-wide” and that “small gaps” in the system were “a normal feature of mass mailing”.