ALL VOTERS will have to produce personal identification, such as a PPS number, in the future if the report of an Oireachtas committee on electoral procedures is adopted. The report also recommends a single national commission to take over the electoral register from the 34 local authorities which currently manage it.
The report was launched in Leinster House yesterday by the chairman of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Sean Fleming.
He said the committee had conducted a review of the administration of the electoral register in the State. It had gathered information from written presentations and from four days of hearings.
Ciaran Lynch, the Labour Party spokesman on local government, who is a member of the committee, welcomed the publication of the report: "Under our proposals there will be a single national commission that will take on board the present operating functions that are held by the 34 local authorities around the country."
He pointed out that there were 3,066,517 people on the 2007 register but, according to the Central Statistics Office, only 2,918,538 people were eligible to vote. "In other words, the register is out by about 150,000 people."
Mr Lynch said the key aspect of the proposed system was a move away from household registration to an individual, PPS-based system which would correct three major problems.
"First, it will eliminate the situation where people can be registered more than once. Second, it will greatly reduce the possibility of fraud, and third it will make it easier for the individual citizen to get themselves registered and know where they are registered."
Voting moves: main points
• The need for a single body to manage registration
• Personal identifiers/PPS numbers
• Data-sharing between different local authorities and State agencies
• Continuous registration and a computerised register;
• Legislation to allow the changes
• Counter-fraud measures;
• Postal voting
• A national returning officer.