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Postal vote – from Lex Ferenda
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Daithí on Lex Ferenda writes:
Irish bloggers, please spread the word. We may as well make the most of a daft Thursday election.
If you are unlikely to be able to vote in person on Thursday 24th May (and you are already registered to vote), it is not too late to apply for a postal vote. If you are accepted as a postal voter (due to being resident in a different place to where you’re registered – i.e. a student from Cork living in Dublin during term-time for college), you must vote by post – you can’t then turn up at your polling booth in Cork.
Your application for a postal vote goes to the local authority area in which you’re already registered (i.e. in the case of our example above, you send it to Cork).
This must be done by Tuesday. (An application by an elector to have his name entered in the supplement to the postal voters list received by the registration authority on or after the third day after the dissolution of the Dáil at a general election … shall not have effect in relation to that election or referendum).
Get a form here (but of course, send it to the right place – this is Dublin’s form). You’ll need your college/employer to sign it; and voting by post itself is a little convoluted. However, this may be of help to some of you.
If not, or if you’re not even on the register, remember that the supplementary register is open. Here’s the form (send to the area in which you live and wish to be registered). This closes the day before 14 days (excluding Sun/bank holiday) before the election – which has been confirmed as Saturday 5th May (effectively close of business on Friday, unless the local authority will allow Saturday faxes, post-Bank-Holiday post, etc.
Is it too much to expect people to register and vote in the place they spend 5 out of 7 days. It’s not too late to do that either
Do you know where you send the RFA3 form – to change address. Do you send it to the local authority where you used to live and are still registered or do you send it to the local authority where you wish to be registered?
RFA3 goes to the local authority where you are registered – and they pass it to the authority where you wish to be registered. If you get it the other way around, no guarantee that they’ll sort it out in time.
I’m studying abroad this year and won’t be back in time to vote. Does anyone know if I able either to get the postal vote sent to me in Canada or to have my parents fill it out for me? Cheers
No and no. You can only do your ‘optional’ postal vote from within the jurisdiction (it’s different for Army posted abroad, etc!). Furthermore, you have to do your postal vote via a Garda station – which requires them being satisfied as to your identity (again with different rules in respect of prison- or hospital-based voters!). This excludes getting someone else to fill it out. Sorry!
Cheers, Daithí, I thought as much. I still feel disenfranchised though – plenty of other countries let expats send in postal votes, so I don’t see why Ireland can’t do the same!
So if you are not on the register and wishing to get on the suplimentary you could not get a postal vote form filled out in time.
No. If you’re not already on the register, you can’t apply to go on the supplementary postal vote list.
stephen, you have to register where you are ordinarily resident on a date in September, I recall it being the 15th that one time but now it appears to be the 1st of September. This is why students would not be registered where they attend college as almost no college terms are started by the 1st of September. You’re not encouraging students to do something illegal are you?
Almost hasn’t Bertie cost people looking for a postal vote a day since they have to get certs from their workplace/educational institutions which would not have been open yesterday?
http://www.kerrycoco.ie/eregister/conditions.asp
Full text below.
“Conditions For Registration
1. Age
A person must be at least 18 years on the day the register comes into force (15 February). Each resident aged 18 and upwards is entitled to be on the register.
2. Citizenship
While every adult resident is entitled to be registered, the registration authority needs to know a person’s citizenship, because this determines the elections in which a person may vote. The qualifying date for citizenship is 1 September, preceding the coming into force of the register. The right to vote is as follows:
* Irish citizens may vote at every election and referendum.
* British citizens may vote at Dáil, European and local elections.
* Other EU citizens may vote at European and local elections.
*
Non-EU citizens may vote at local elections only.
3. Residence
A person must ordinarily be resident at the relevant address on 1 September preceding the coming into force of the register. A person may be registered at one address only. If a person has more than one address – for example, a person living away from home to attend college or in connection with employment – the registration authority should be told the address for which the person wishes to be registered.
A person who leaves his or her ordinary residence with the intention of returning there within 18 months can continue to be registered there, subject to the overriding condition that they may be registered at one address only. A person who is absent temporarily from his or her ordinary address, such as a person on holiday, in hospital or absent for employment purposes, should be registered for that address. A visitor or person staying temporarily at the address should not be registered.”
Almost hasn’t Bertie cost people looking for a postal vote a day since they have to get certs from their workplace/educational institutions which would not have been open yesterday?
Is that true?
Yes, you’d have to get the cert today and hand-deliver it tomorrow – eugh.
There is, of course, the argument that anyone interested in a postal vote could have applied for it last week, or the week before, etc etc. (Just to say it before someone else does!)
Simon, I’m not 100% clear on it but I have seen this is circulation and it seems to match what is on checktheregister.ie. It specifically mentions Sundays and Bank holidays as not counting for the 14 days that “If you are applying after an election or referendum has been called, please note that the application must reach the City or County Council concerned before the fourteenth day (Sundays, public holidays and Good Friday excluded) before polling day in order to be considered for inclusion in the supplement for that election or referendum. ” but for the postal vote it just says 2 days after the dissolution. So you would have to have got the form today then also the cert today, then post it today and hope that it makes it to the council tomorrow.
“Please see below regarding POSTAL VOTING
Anyone wishing to apply for postal vote must do so by today MONDAY and return to their Council by tomorrow Tuesday.
You will not be able to receive a postal vote after this deadline.
Please forward to anyone you may know who would normally be voting but cannot do so due to a Thursday election.
Also details below regarding adding yourself to the Supplementary register if you are not currently registered (check on http://www.checktheregister.ie )
Postal Votes
You can still get a postal vote. Closing Date for receipt of Postal and Special Supplementary applications is 2 days after the dissolution of the Dáil for a General Election.
You must already be registered and need to apply to the Council where you normally reside, you will need a cert. from your College.
Form:
Change of Address
Please note that students (or anybody) already registered to vote that may want to move their vote if the election is on a Thursday can do so by filling out the following form
Supplementary register
If you are applying after an election or referendum has been called, please note that the application must reach the City or County Council concerned before the fourteenth day (Sundays, public holidays and Good Friday excluded) before polling day in order to be considered for inclusion in the supplement for that election or referendum.
Actually, it is right that people could have applied last week but where is the logic in the concept of giving people a postal vote because they will be away for unforeseen events when you don’t know when the election will be but the government expecting people to apply before they call it.
Note – the official closing date for the supplementary register is confirmed as Saturday 5th – but different authorities may define it differently (i.e with fax, post dates etc) so give them a call where necessary.
Equally important to remembers is the change of address form RFA 3 (here) This is the form to get you on the register if you are registered elsewhere (like I am). It will delete you from the old constituency and change you to the new one.
Yes, and remember that if you are doing an RFA3 – you must send it *to the authority in which you are already registered*. That means that if you are registered in Mayo but want to be in Dublin, you send it to Mayo.
I have lived in Ireland for two years and I happen to be away on May 24th. Is there now no way that I can vote, given the above conversation about the expired postal vote deadline, other than to cancel my trip? I don’t believe it, the situation is ridiculous.
Hi Ian,
Under the current law there is no way that you can vote. Which is not a good thing. The only thing I can suggest is that you tell every canvasser you meet that they should amend the Electoral Acts!
Thanks for the information. I don’t think the Taoiseach should be allowed to choose the election date. Perhaps it would be better if some independent body or other specified the election day two months in advance, then the closing date for postal votes could be one month before the election day.
your absolutely right Ian and this was proposed by the Active citizenship taskforce not too long ago. An electoral commission with responsibility for elections and their staging would be handy.
Also date is closed for postal vote but ensure it is still open for the supplementary register by ringing.
Can residents of N.Ireland vote in the upcoming election?
yeah
see here. Need to be on the register by now though, all dates are passed for getting on the supplementary.