Thousands of extra voter names thought to be on registers | Breaking News & Latest Ireland Updates

Thousands of extra voter names thought to be on registers — Eleven local authorities across the country have more people on their election register than the population that is eligible to vote. An Coimisiún Tog...

Eleven local authorities across the country have more people on their election register than the population that is eligible to vote.

An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the independent electoral commission, said it is deeply concerned at the legacy accuracy issues surrounding the multiple electoral databases - following a significant research project.

There are currently 31 electoral registers, the vast majority of which do not "talk to one another", meaning duplication is common.

Some political scientists have estimated that up to 500,000 names are on the register that should not be, but an Coimisiún Toghcháin claims there is no way of accurately assessing that.

However, it expects there are hundreds of thousands of additional names across the registers.

It said some local authorities have a lot of duplicate or redundant or deceased names on the list, but others do not.

All of the 11 local authorities with too many people on the register are seen as having "below average accuracy indicators."

Eight of these have the lowest accuracy indicators in the country and are: Sligo, Donegal, Galway County, Cork County, Carlow, Cavan and Mayo (in order of over-registration).

The Department of Housing and Local Government is compiling a single national register, which is due to be completed in autumn 2026.

An Coimisúin Toghcháin chief Art O'Leary said that "difficulties" arise because there are 31 separate electoral registers.

"Every local authority has its own register and aside from the four [councils] in Dublin, they don't talk to each other, and I think this is where the difficulties are," he said.

Mr O'Leary added that an Coimisúin Toghcháin has requested "unique identifiers" from councils for those on their registers, including PPS numbers, dates of birth, and Eircodes.

This will help it to "recognise duplicates" on the system and the maintenance and management of electoral registers "should be much better".

He also said an Coimisúin Toghcháin needs to look back to try to "clean" the data it has by encouraging people to go onto the register and update their details if they can.