Thousands of incorrect polling cards sent in Kildare

Theodorebear

An interesting story in Kildare. Apparently the wrong database of names was sent to the printers to do up the Polling Cards for the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty on Friday. This has lead to thousands of people being sent polling cards who are not entitled to vote. Non Irish citizens can vote in local elections and European elections and British citizens can even vote in Dáil elections but are not entitled to vote in constitutional referenda.

Imagine what fun will ensure on Friday when many of these people turn up in good faith to vote and are refused ballot forms

See the Kildare County Council website for discussion here and the Leinster leader story on this screw up.

Davidth88

Hi,

I was one of those .

I am not an Irish Citizen , therefore not entitled to vote on your constitution ( quite rightly in my opinion ).

My polling card will be left sitting exactly where it is now tomorrow.

( I would have a hard time deciding which way to vote so quite glad to be releved of the duty TBH ... too much negative campagning and people calling each other liers )

Theodorebear

Hi Davidth88,

Glad that you know you are not entitled to vote in this referendum.:)

Spare a thought for the many people who will not realize this and be embarrassed by being refused a ballot card in the polling station.:eek:

And now that we are all so short of money think of the cash that was wasted on printing and postage for absolutely no reason.:mad:

ednwireland

i'm not entitled to vote tomorrow (non irish citizen) this is the first referendum/ presidential election i have not received a voting card !
i have never used my card and i assume that when checked at a polling station i would have been told that i could nolt vote as i have always been registred correctly.
hope i get one for the next general election (scurries off to check electoral register)

mike65

If you are not Irish and get a card is there anything to actually stop you voting, do they cross check anything at the station?

Riskymove

mike65 wrote: »

If you are not Irish and get a card is there anything to actually stop you voting, do they cross check anything at the station?

if they are aware of the issues then yes they can stop you

a polling card is not needed to vote

IFIC there were issues like this at the last elections (local and by-elections) with similar confusions about who could vote and in which ballot

there were posts from people who were stopped from voting

Davidth88

mike65 wrote: »

If you are not Irish and get a card is there anything to actually stop you voting, do they cross check anything at the station?

Yes

At the station they have the register , my name is there with a B ( I think ) against it to tell the people there I am British .

They actually commented in the recent local election when I went to vote

murphaph

I can see the losing side calling for a rerun. What an amateur performance.

mobpd

Theodorebear wrote: »

Hi Davidth88,

Glad that you know you are not entitled to vote in this referendum.:)

Spare a thought for the many people who will not realize this and be embarrassed by being refused a ballot card in the polling station.:eek:

And now that we are all so short of money think of the cash that was wasted on printing and postage for absolutely no reason.:mad:

Has Charlie Talbot, manager KCC, publicly apologised for this?

Theodorebear

mobpd,

An apology for screwing up really is not the style of KCC, usually they prefer to abdicate responsibility or blame other people. All that Mr. Talbot has said is that they feel it is not their fault as the printing was outsourced to a 3rd party. Any guess's where the information the printers got came from?

see KCC's discussion form for the full thread

mobpd

just spoke to Charlie and he did apologise .
He says that the electoral database was given to the external printing company - Business Print Ltd, in Walkinstown and they made up the voting cards to the wrong set of voters.

Nerin

murphaph wrote: »

I can see the losing side calling for a rerun. What an amateur performance.

3rd times the charm...

Theodorebear

mobpd wrote: »

just spoke to Charlie and he did apologise .
He says that the electoral database was given to the external printing company - Business Print Ltd, in Walkinstown and they made up the voting cards to the wrong set of voters.

The key question here is did KCC actually tell this printing company how to get the right set of voters to print voting cards for or did they just hand off the list in total. KCC is not distinguishing itself in the old openness and transparency stakes on this issue.

thebman

Isn't their a data protection issue here when they send personal info about people to a third party that the third party shouldn't have?

maxwell smart

KCC are clowns. My wife has received 2 polling cards for every election for the past 10 years, since we got married and changed her name.
About 2 years ago she gave up telling KCC about this as their response every time was "Really? Well thats HIGHLY unusual". Yeah Right!

Theodorebear

on my travels today I met some people who were refused ballot papers in Naas (where I live) since the were not Irish citizens. One British citizen seems to have taken it quite badly. One French citizen I know mailed KCC in time to confirm that she was not entitled to vote and received a reasonable email from the Head of Corporate Affairs saying a mistake had been made and apologizing.