THOUSANDS MORE people are registered to vote in Co Kerry than are eligible to vote based on official figures, it has emerged.
The two Dáil constituencies in Co Kerry had significantly more people registered to vote in 2007 than were eligible to do so in accordance with official figures based on the 2006 census, carried out in April of that year. This is according to constituency profiles by the Oireachtas Library and Research Unit (LRS) published last week.
Current figures compiled by enumerators for the local elections in Kerry (foreign people are also entitled to vote in local elections) show this discrepancy continuing, especially in Kerry South, according to a spokesman for the county council which compiles the register of electors.
Much of the discrepancy was due to migration as well as to student movement, according to the spokesman.
Local authorities wanted a system where voters PPS numbers could be used to verify names on the register as well as make it easier to track movements, the spokesman for the council said yesterday.
While it is the case that more people are registered to vote than officially estimated in most Dáil constituencies, the problem is “more acute” in Kerry South where the population is less homogeneous in terms of nationality and ethnicity than the State as a whole, according to the LRS profile. There was a difference of 3,000 in that constituency between the estimates and the register.
However, there was an even larger discrepancy in Kerry North – although here the population is actually more homogeneous than the State as a whole, according to the LRS report. There a 12.5 per cent difference, or a difference of 6,000 people, was found – higher than in Kerry South.
“It appears that there are more people on the register in Kerry North than are eligible to vote,” the LRS noted.
The spokesman for Kerry County Council, which employs 38 enumerators to call door to door in order to update the register of electors on a yearly basis, said enumerators are finding it difficult to keep up with the county’s shifts in immigrant population on the one hand, and recent emigration on the other.
According to the Oireachtas LRS service, 50,146 people were entitled to vote in the Kerry North constituency, but 56,216 were actually registered in 2007. The number entitled to vote today in a Dáil election is 53,506, the council has said. Most of the discrepancy in Kerry North was due to the Tralee area’s large student population who were registered on the night, the council believed.