De Brun demands right to vote for West Belfast citizens

25 March, 2009

A delegation comprising Sinn Fein MEP Bairbre de Brun, Sinn Fein Balmoral representative Vincent Parker and SDLP member Margaret Walsh, along with Steven Corr and Gerry McConville from the Falls Community Council, submitted hundreds of electoral registration forms to the Electoral Office Headquarters in Belfast on behalf of concerned constituents in West Belfast on Wednesday, 25 March.

 

Speaking outside the Electoral Office Headquarters, Sinn Fein MEP Bairbre de Brun said:

 

‘’We are here today to submit hundreds of electoral registration forms on behalf of people in West Belfast.

 

‘’The Falls Community Council has asked Sinn Fein, as the largest political party in West Belfast, and also the SDLP, to accompany them to the Electoral Office Headquarters to demand that the Electoral Office places these people onto the register so that they can exercise a basic human right - the right to vote.

 

‘’Sinn Fein has already, over the past few months, submitted almost a thousand registration forms to the Electoral Office on behalf of people in West Belfast.

 

‘’The majority of these people have been refused their rightful place on the electoral register. This is a disgrace.

 

‘’In the past few days, Sinn Fein has received, after a Freedom of Information request, the statistic that 39,014 submitted registration forms were rejected by the Electoral Office across the North between December 2007 and December 2008.

 

‘’In the same period, 16,568 people were added to the register.

 

‘’This statistic shows that the Electoral Office is rejecting much more people than it is adding.

 

‘’There is something badly wrong with the registration practices employed by the Electoral Office.

 

‘’People have come in their droves to Sinn Fein advice centres and to community organisations to complain that they have been unable to get on the register.

 

‘’In an Assembly debate on Monday, 23 March, members of Sinn Fein and other parties spoke of the many difficulties their constituents were facing when dealing with the Electoral Office.

 

‘’The people who are being most affected by this are the poor and socially deprived who live mainly in urban areas.

 

‘’The Electoral Office should immediately abolish their unnecessary and excessive demands for additional evidence on top of a registration form.

 

‘’The access to databases that allows them to verify information received from electoral registration forms should be enough.

 

‘’200,000 people are not on the electoral register but are entitled to be. That is a huge indictment on the Electoral Office that must be rectified. The issue is not one of unionist versus nationalist or republican; it is about the right to vote for us all.'’

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