REGISTER ISSUES:A NUMBER of problems have been reported at polling stations, including voters discovering they are not on the register, are only registered to vote in local elections or, in one case, have a vote at seven years of age
Trinity College’s Student Union president Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem said last night they had received “quite worrying reports” from over a dozen students, mainly in the Dublin City Council area, that they were not on the register.
They were among more than 2,000 students who registered through a union initiative.
A spokesman for Dublin City Council said applications received by the cut-off date of Tuesday, February 8th, were processed and dealt with.
The seven-year-old voter, Dublin South East resident Jack O’Toole of Pearse House on Pearse Street, has been getting voting cards since he was three years of age.
His father, Kevin O’Toole, said yesterday that as well as the polling cards his son has also been receiving estate agents’ letters for apartments and circulars from a few TDs.
“I haven’t a clue why he’s on the register,” he said. “I never thought about it at first. We just threw them out. But then I thought somebody was frauding his name.”
He decided to check it out, and brought his son to St Andrew’s resource centre polling station and showed the card, which was then torn up.
Mr O’Toole is none the wiser about why his son was on the register as no other adult member of the family was or is called Jack. His two other children, Gavin (12) and Lucy (seven months), have never received polling cards.
In Dublin West it has been the opposite experience for a number of Bosnian immigrants who are Irish citizens.
Six Bosnians were not permitted to vote when they went to their polling stations at Ladyswell national school in Mulhuddart and St Ciaran’s national school in Hartstown despite being registered as citizens with their local authority, according to Valerie Hughes.
Ms Hughes, who works with members of the Bosnian community in Ireland, said she had spent two days helping members of the community to register, ensuring all documentation was correctly filled out and proof of citizenship provided.
A number did not receive polling cards, and when they went to vote were told they were not registered as citizens and only allowed to vote in local and European elections.
“Voting is an important and fundamental right, and the people who are supposed to compile the register should do so correctly,” she said.
Suljo Zukanovic, a bus driver living in Hartstown, has been in Ireland 12 years and an Irish citizen for eight years.
He has voted in every election since 2004. “In 2009 I got two voting cards,” he said yesterday.
Mr Zukanovic said his wife Ilona’s name was on the register but he was excluded.
A spokeswoman for Fingal County Council said “there has been a continuous campaign for the last number of months to encourage people to check that they are on the register”. Amendments and additions could have been made to the supplementary register. The spokeswoman said it was up to the individual voter to check they were on the electoral register correctly, which they could do at checktheregister.ie
The council said Mr Zukanovic had been registered in 2004, but only to vote in local elections and no amendments had been notified since.
In Meath West, the ballot paper logo for Christian Solidarity Party candidate Manus MacMeanmain displayed a black and white picture of acorns and oak leaves while the party’s logo is actually a yellow Celtic cross with green edging.
Mr MacMeanmain said it put him at a disadvantage as there was a certain proportion of the electorate who would recognise the logo and it featured prominently on his promotional literature.
He added that none of the major parties would be happy if such a mistake had been made.
Emigrants have also complained about the failure to allow them to vote.
One emigrant, Evan Cleary, said he was “not able to vote because I live abroad and can’t afford to fly home just to vote. There really should be a system to allow people to vote from abroad, like so many other countries’ electoral systems allow.”