February 7, 2004 One in Six Prevented From Voting in Northern Elections
by Paul T Colgan

One person in six was prevented from voting in November's crucial Assembly elections in the North, The Sunday Business Post has learned.

The voters were either removed from the electoral register or failed to claim their vote under strict new electoral laws. In some areas, almost 90 per cent of potential first-time voters were not entered on the register.

Almost 58,000 new voters across the North failed to register and were unable to vote on polling day.

The revelations are likely to cause controversy across the North's political divide, as the massive drop in younger voters affects both nationalist and unionist electoral districts. Queen's University politics lecturer Dr Sydney Elliot said the figures would raise concerns on the part of all political parties.

Analysts believe that full registration could have dramatically altered the Northern political landscape.

The overall figure of those eligible to vote, but who failed to re-register under the Electoral Fraud Act, is to be announced by the Electoral Office next month. It is thought that almost 200,000 people eligible to vote were unable to do so because their names did not appear on the official register, or because they did not have proper ID as specified under the new legislation.

The Act, introduced in 2002, forces voters to reclaim their vote every year, and has introduced stringent new measures governing acceptable voter identification.

The figures were pooled from the North's most recent census and the official register.

Northern elections see massive drop in younger voters In some areas, there was no increase in new voters in 2003, despite warnings from all the parties that a significant section of the electorate was at riskof being disenfranchised.

In the nationalist South Down constituency, 64.2 per cent of potential first-time voters did not claim their right to vote.

Certain electoral wards in Strangford, a unionist-dominated constituency, recorded single-figure registrationof vo- ters who reached registration age in 2003.

In some wards, no first-time voters appear on the register. The alarming slump in new voters will have a huge impact on the European elections in June.

The North's chief electoral officer, Denis Stanley, did not dispute the new figures on younger voters, but said that the office had done everything required of it under the new legislation.

© The Sunday Business Post, 2003, Thomas Crosbie Media TCH