The Electoral Commission says it is ‘deeply concerned’ at the lack of accuracy in the current electoral registers. The Commission today published it’s first report on the current electoral registers which are managed by 31 separate Councils across the country. The report recommends a plan for the 31 local authorities to address this issue before the next round of electoral events in 2029. The Commission says there is an unknown but potentially significant number of duplicate or redundant entries on the electoral registers and all eligible voters may not be registered. Voters can update their details by visiting www.checktheregister.ie.
The Tipperary Electoral Register is in need of “significant attention” according to the Commission as the register reports a total of 139,040 voters and the Central Statistics Office says the county’s population of persons aged 18+ is 139,543 which would indicate that 99.6% of possible voters are registered. The Commission does not think this is accurate based on the accuracy indicators on the register.
On 3 of the 4 indicators Tipperary is lower than the national average. 78% of registrations have a date of birth – the national average is 72.4% of registrations include the person’s date of birth, Eircodes are recorded for 53% – lower than the national average of 69.8%, both indicators(DOB & Eircode) are recorded on 45% of registrations in Tipperary – the national average is 56% and finally only 20% of registrations in Tipperary have a PPS number attached – the national average is 22 %.
As part of the ongoing reform process a national rolling electoral register is to be introduced in Ireland in 2026. Accurate registers make it possible to more definitively assess voter turnout and to understand the scale of non-registration. Based on the reported data, 11 local authorities have more people on their local election register than the entire population of those areas eligible to be on the register.
