The way the electoral register maintains means electoral fraud is “possible”, a political expert has warned.
On Friday, only 59% of people on the electoral register turned out - down from 63% in 2020.
Political analyst Odran Flynn believes the low figure is partly because the electoral register is not accurate.
“I listened to an interview with [the CEO of the Electoral Commission] Art O'Leary yesterday morning, where the surprise was that he seemed surprised by it,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“It’s been raised extensively and has been mentioned in the records of the Dáil quite a number of times.
“In September, three months ago, I did a piece for a Prime Time special for RTÉ where I pointed out, for example in Donegal, the number of people on the register was 14,000 more than the people aged over 21 in the county.”
A polling station at Glasnevin National School. Photo Leon Farrell/Rollingnews.ieMr Flynn said there are a “whole combination” of factors that explain why the electoral register does not accurately reflect the number of voters in Ireland.
“It’s people who have died, it’s people who have moved, people who have emigrated - it’s all of those put together,” he said.
“Probably, most of it comes from the fact that a lot of younger people live away from the rural areas where they come from.
“That’s why Donegal, Kerry, western Ireland is particularly relevant in this.”
In the run up to the election, many households will have received polling cards for people who long ago left the property.
It is a phenomenon that Mr Flynn fears makes electoral fraud very easy to commit.
“It’s possible because the system allows it to be possible,” he said.
“Yesterday morning, Mr O’Leary said, ‘Who is going to go from Cork to Dublin to do this?’
“It’s not Cork to Dublin - it’s a street where you live five-minutes away; or you could move to a county just across the border to you.”
Completed ballot papers in Cork. Credit: AG News/Alamy Live NewsMr Flynn said the Government needs to take radical action in order to safeguard the integrity of Irish elections.
“We should do what I recommended 20-years ago when I studied the system in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“What they did is they started from scratch; they scrapped the register, went to everybody’s home and started a new one.”
In 2006, a former DUP Mayor of Coleraine was jailed for four months for electoral fraud.
The court heard that the former councillor had fraudulently cast 15 postal votes on behalf of residents of a nursing home in Portrush.
Main images shows votes being counted. Image by: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie
