Electoral Act, 1923

SCHEDULES.


FIRST SCHEDULE.

Registration Rules.

Separate part of register for each registration unit.

1. The register shall be framed in separate parts for each registration unit in the registration area.

The district electoral division as constituted under the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898 , shall be the registration unit, but:—

(a) where a district electoral division is divided into wards each such ward shall be treated as a separate registration unit; and

(b) where a district electoral division is situate; partly in one Dáil polling district, and partly in another, or partly within and partly without any town (within the meaning of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898 ), or ward of a borough or town, each part shall be treated as a separate registration unit.

General form of the Register.

2. The register shall, as respects each registration unit, contain the names of all persons who are entitled to be registered as Dáil electors or Seanad electors in that registration area, and shall show in the prescribed manner the class or classes of elector to which each such person belongs and shall generally be in such form as shall from time to time be prescribed.

Postal voters list.

3. The registration officer shall prepare and add as a supplement to the register a separate list for the whole registration area, or, where the area includes more than one constituency, for each constituency in the area, of persons entitled to vote as postal voters (in this Act referred to as the postal voters list) without, however, removing the names of those voters from any other part of the register. Every such list shall be made up according to polling districts.

Register to be made up in street or alphabetical order.

4. Where the registration unit is situated in a county borough, the names in the register shall be arranged in street order, unless the council of the county borough consider that having regard to the general character of the area forming the registration unit, arrangement in street order is inapplicable.

Where the registration unit is situated in an administrative county, the names in the register shall be arranged alphabetically in townland order, unless the county council consider that, having regard to the general character of the area forming the registration unit, arrangement in street order is possible and convenient.

Effect of register.

5. The registers for the registration units making up any constituency, so far as they relate to Dáil electors, shall together form the register of Dáil electors for that constituency, and so far as they relate to Seanad electors, shall together form the register of Seanad electors for that constituency.

Duty of Registration Officer to Prepare and Publish Lists.

Duty of registration officer to prepare electors lists.

6. It shall be the duty of the registration officer to cause a house to house or other sufficient inquiry to be made, and to prepare or cause to be prepared, lists (in this Schedule referred to as electors lists) for each registration unit in his registration area of all persons appearing to be entitled to be registered as Dáil or Seanad electors in the register or electors by this Act directed to be prepared in every year, and to publish or cause to be published those lists in the prescribed form, on or before the 29th day of January.

The registration officer shall at the same time publish a notice specifying the mode in which, and the time within which, claims and objections are to be made under these rules.

Duty of certain officers to perform duties and furnish information if required.

7. It shall be an obligation on the registration officer to require the persons or person respectively holding the offices hereinafter mentioned to perform any necessary duties in respect of registration, and the duties which may be so required to be performed shall include the duties hereinafter specified in respect of such persons or person—viz.:—

(a) any person holding the office of collector of poor rate may be required to make the house to house or other sufficient inquiry directed by these rules, and to furnish sufficient information to enable the electors lists to be prepared, and to furnish any further information required for the purposes of this Act respecting any persons resident or occupying land or premises in, or the removal of any person from the district of such collector, and to publish on behalf of the registration officer at such places as may be required, any lists or registers by this Act directed to be published, and to attend at the revision of claims and objections under these rules at such places and times as may be ordered by the registration officer.

(b) Any person holding the office of secretary of a County Council, Town Clerk of a County or other Borough, or Clerk of an Urban District Council may be required to prepare from the information furnished by the collectors of poor rate and otherwise and to furnish to the registration officer draft electors lists, and to attend and furnish such information as may be required at the revision of claims and objections under these rules at such times and places as may be ordered by the registration officer.

(c) Any person for the time being exercising the functions of a Superintendent Registrar of Births and Deaths may be required to furnish lists or other information in connection with deaths of persons within his area.

(d) It shall be the duty of the persons specified in sub-sections (a), (b) and (c) of this rule to perform any duties which may be required of them respectively under this rule, and if any such person refuses, neglects or fails, without reasonable cause, to perform any such duty in connection with registration he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.

(e) Any question which may arise as to what duties or duty any such person as aforesaid may be required to perform under this rule shall be determined by the Minister for Local Government whose decision shall be final.

(f) Each of the several persons mentioned in this rule shall be entitled to payment for all services performed and expenses incurred by him in the execution by him of all or any duties or duty, which he may be required to perform under this rule, and any sum so paid shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as part of the registration expenses of the registration officer on whose requisition the services were performed, or the expenses were incurred.

Corrupt and illegal practices list.

8. The registration officer shall publish, together with the electors lists, the corrupt and illegal practices' list (if any) made by him under section thirty-nine of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883, or made by or sent to him under section twenty-four of the Municipal Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act, 1884.

Claims to be Registered.

Claims to be sent to registration officer.

9. Any person who claims to be entitled to be registered as a Dáil or Seanad elector, and who is not entered, or is entered in an incorrect place or manner, or with incorrect particulars on the electors lists, may claim to be registered, or to be registered correctly, by sending to the registration officer a claim in the prescribed form not later than the 26th day of February.

Form of claim.

10. The form of claim for a person making a claim on his own behalf shall contain a; declaration of the qualification of the claimant to be registered, including a declaration that the claimant has attained the required age, and is a citizen of Saorstát Eireann, and of the class or classes of electors in which the claimant desires to be registered—that is to say, as a Dáil elector or a Seanad elector, and where the claimant claims in respect of a non-residential qualification a declaration of residence or, in case such person has no settled residence, an address to which communications may be sent, and a statement that the name of the claimant is not included in the electors lists as appearing to be entitled to be registered for that or for any other constituency in Saorstát Eireann. A note shall be added to the form warning the claimant that any false declaration for the purpose of this provision will involve a penalty.

Where a claim is made, on behalf of a claimant by another person the registration officer shall not enter the name of the claimant on the register unless the matters required to be stated in the declaration under the foregoing provision are proved to his satisfaction.

Publication of lists of claimants.

11. It shall be the duty of the registration officer to prepare and publish a list of claimants in the prescribed form not later than the 12th day of March.

Objections.

Notice of objections.

12. Any person whose name appears on the electors lists as appearing to be entitled to be registered for a constituency, may object to the registration of any person whose name is included in the electors lists for that constituency, by sending notice of objection in the prescribed form to the registration officer not later than the 19th day of February, and may object to the registration of any person whose name is included in the list of claimants by sending notice of objection in the prescribed form to the registration officer not later than the 26th day of March.

An objection under this rule shall not be entertained unless within the time limited for sending the notice of objection, a copy of the notice of objection sent to the registration officer is sent by the person objecting to the person whose registration is objected to in such objection. Such copy of the notice of objection may be sent by prepaid and registered post to the address of the person objected to as appearing on the lists or to his last known place of abode.

Publication of objections to lists.

13. It shall be the duty of the registration officer to prepare and publish a list of names of persons to whose registration notice of objection has been given not later than the 5th day of March.

Publication of objections to claims.

14. It shall be the duty of the registration officer to publish a list of the names of persons included in the list of claimants to whose registration notice of objection has been given as soon as practicable after the 26th day of March.

Power of registration officer to appoint Town Clerk as his deputy.

15. The Clerk of the Crown and Peace for a County Borough shall, as respects any County Borough for which he is registration officer, appoint the Town Clerk of the County Borough to act as his deputy for the purposes of Rules 9 to 14, and for the purpose of publishing the lists and notices to be published under Rules 6 and 8 of this Schedule if the Town Clerk so desires, and any Town Clerk so appointed shall, for the purposes aforesaid, have the like powers and duties, and be subject to the like liabilities as if he were registration officer.

Postal Voters List.

Postal Voters list.

16. The names in the Postal Voters List shall be arranged in the same order as that in which those names appear in the register, and shall be numbered consecutively throughout the constituency, commencing with the number one.

Any member of the defence forces of Saorstát Eireann may, not later than the 26th day of February, give notice to the registration officer that he does not desire to have his name entered on the Postal Voters List.

Record of addresses to be kept.

17. The registration officer shall keep a record of any address which may be furnished to him by or in respect of any person placed on the Postal Voters List as the address which is to be for the time being the address of the voter for the purposes of the provisions relating to voting by postal voters, and, as soon as practicable, shall cause instructions to be sent to the voter as to the mode of voting under those provisions.

The record of addresses shall be open to inspection under the same conditions as those that govern inspection of the register.

Preparation of Register from the Lists.

Consideration of objections.

18. The registration officer shall, as soon as practicable, consider all objections of which notice has been given to him in accordance with these rules, and for that purpose shall give at least five clear days notice to the objector, and to the person in respect of whose registration the notice of objection has been given, of the time and place at which the objection will be considered by him.

Consideration of claims.

19. The registration officer shall also consider all claims of which notice is given to him in accordance with these rules, and in respect of which no notice of objection is given, and, if he considers that the claim may be allowed without further inquiry shall give notice to the claimant that the claim is allowed.

If the registration officer is not satisfied that any such claim can be allowed without inquiry, he shall give at least five clear days notice to the claimant of the time and place at which the claim will be considered by him.

Supplementary powers on consideration of claims and objections.

20. If on the consideration of any claim or objection it appears to the registration officer that the claimant or person in respect of whose registration objection is taken, is not entitled to be entered on the register in the character or characters, or in the place on the register in which he claims to be registered, or in which he is entered on the list, but is entitled to be entered on the register in another character or characters, or in another place on the register, the registration officer may decide that the name of that person shall be so entered on the register.

Inquiries by Registration officer.

21. The registration officer may make such further inquiries as he may deem necessary as to the right to be registered in any character of any person whose name is included in the electors lists as appearing to be entitled to be registered, and if after such inquiry it shall appear to the registration officer that such person is not so entitled, the registration officer may himself object to the registration of such person, and any such objection may be made notwithstanding the fact that the time for sending notice of objection under Rule 12 of this Schedule may have expired. Notice of any objection under this rule in the prescribed form shall be sent by the registration officer to the person to whose registration the objection relates, and shall state the grounds of the objection.

Any such objection shall be considered in the same manner, and after the same notice of time and place as is required by Rule 18 of this Schedule, but need not be otherwise published.

Correction of lists.

22. The registration officer shall make such alterations and corrections in the electors lists (including the Postal Voters List) as are required in order to carry out his decisions on any objections or claims, and shall also make any such alterations or corrections in those lists by way of the removal of duplicate entries (subject to any expression of choice by the person affected as to those entries), the expunging of the names of persons who are dead or subject to any legal incapacity, or the placing of marks or the correction of marks placed against the name of an elector, or otherwise as he thinks necessary in order to secure that no person is registered more than once as a Dáil elector, or more than once as a Seanad elector, or otherwise necessary in order to make those lists complete and accurate as a register.

Where an entry in respect of a person has been removed as a duplicate, the registration officer shall not be required to include in subsequent electors lists any entry which has been so removed if the elector remains qualified for registration in respect of the qualification which was retained when the duplicate entry was removed.

Voting in different districts.

23. Any person whose name shall appear in the list of Dáil electors or the list of Seanad electors of any registration unit in any county constituency, and who resides outside the polling district in which he is entitled to be registered, shall be at liberty to make his claim before the registration officer to vote at any other polling place within the same constituency. The registration officer need not consider any claim under this rule received after the 26th day of March.

Any such person shall be admitted to vote at such polling place accordingly.

There shall be added as a supplement to that portion of the register which relates to any polling district a list, giving with respect to persons who, though not resident in that polling district, are entitled to vote at a polling place for that district under this rule, the same particulars as are contained with respect to those persons in the register, including a reference to the polling district where any such person is registered: Provided that the names shall be numbered consecutively after the other names in the register for such first-mentioned polling district.

Objections to corrections.

24. Where the registration officer makes any correction in the lists (including the Postal Voters List), otherwise than in pursuance of a claim or objection, or for the purposes of correcting a clerical error, he shall give notice to the person affected by the correction, and give that person an opportunity of objecting to the correction, and, if necessary, of being heard with respect thereto.

Formation of lists into register.

25. The registration officer shall make all the necessary alterations in, and corrections of, the lists (including the Postal Voters List) and do everything necessary to form those lists into a register (with a separate letter and a separate series of numbers for each polling district) in time to allow the publication of the lists so corrected as a register as required by these rules.

Duty to Publish and Deliver Copies of the Register.

Publication of register.

26. It shall be the duty of the registration officer to publish the register not later than the 1st day of June in each year, by publishing a notice that a copy of the register is open to inspection at his office, and that copies of the part of the register relating to any registration unit are open to inspection during business hours in the registration unit at the place mentioned in the notice.

It shall be the duty of the registration officer to keep copies of the register for inspection in his office, and also to arrange for copies of the part of the register relating to any registration unit being kept for inspection in that unit either in the principal post office (if the Postmaster-General gives authority for the purpose), or at some other convenient place to which the public have access to be arranged by him.

It shall be the duty of the registration officer to transmit a copy of the register, as soon as may be after it is published, to the Minister for Local Government, and also to transmit a summary of the contents of the register at such times and in such form, and giving such particulars as the said Minister may require.

Delivery of copies of the register.

27. It shall be the duty of the registration officer, on the application of any person during business hours, and on payment of the prescribed fee, to furnish to the applicant copies of the register, or of so much of the register as relates to any registration unit.

Appeals from Registration Officer.

Notice of appeal from registration officer.

28. A person desiring to appeal against the decision of a registration officer must give notice of appeal in the prescribed form to the registration officer, and to the opposite party, if any, when the decision is given, or within five days thereafter, specifying the grounds of appeal.

The registration officer shall forward any such notices to the County Court in manner directed by rules of court, together, in each case, with a statement of the material facts which, in his opinion, have been established in the case, and of his decision upon the whole case and on any point which may be specified as a ground of appeal, and shall also furnish to the court any further information which the court may require, and which he is able to furnish.

Appeals relating to the same point.

29. Where it appears to the registration officer that any notices of appeal given to him are based on similar grounds, he shall inform the County Court of the fact for the purpose of enabling the County Court (if the court thinks fit) to consolidate the appeals, or select any one appeal as a test case.

General.

Publication of documents.

30. Where the registration officer by these rules is required to publish any document, and no specific provision is made as to the mode of publication, he shall publish the document by making copies of the document available for inspection by the public in his office, and in the chief post office (if the Postmaster-General gives authority for the purpose), or some other convenient place in the area forming the registration unit to which the document relates, and, if he thinks fit, in any other manner which is, in his opinion, desirable for the purpose of bringing the contents of the document to the notice of those interested.

As respects any registration unit in which there is no post office or other convenient place at which copies of documents relating to the unit can be made available for inspection, it shall be sufficient compliance with the requirements of these rules if copies of the document are made available for inspection by the public at some convenient place to which the public have access outside the registration unit.

Any document required to be published shall be kept published for the prescribed time.

Any failure to publish a document in accordance with these rules shall not invalidate the document, but this provision shall not relieve the registration officer from any penalty for such failure.

If any person without lawful authority destroys, mutilates, defaces or removes any notice published by the registration officer in connection with his registration duties, or any document or copy of a, document which has been made available for inspection in pursuance of these rules, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds.

Duty of registration officer to supply forms.

31. The registration officer shall, without fee, on the application of any person, supply forms of claims and of notices of objections.

Supply of copies of claims, objections etc.

32. The registration officer shall on the application of any person, allow that person to inspect, and take extracts from, or on payment of the prescribed fee, supply to that person copies of the electors lists for any registration unit in his area, and any claim or notice of objection made under these rules.

Mode of sending notices, etc.

33. Any claim or notice of objection which is under these rules to be sent to the registration officer may be sent to him by prepaid post addressed to him at his office.

Any notice which is required to be sent by the registration officer under these rules to any person shall be sufficiently sent if sent by post to the address of that person as given by him for the purpose, or as appearing on the lists, or if there is no such address to his last, known place of abode.

Information from householders.

34. The registration officer may require any householder or any person owning or occupying any land or premises within his area, or the agent of such person, to give, in the prescribed form, any information in his possession which the registration officer may require for the purpose of his duties as registration officer; and if any person fails to give the required information, or gives false information, he shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds. Any notice requiring information under this rule may be sent by post.

Declaration as to age and nationality.

35. The registration officer, before registering any person as an elector, may, if he thinks it necessary—

(a) require that person either to produce a certificate of birth, or, if that is not practicable or convenient, to make a statutory declaration that such person has attained the required age, and

(b) require that person to produce a certificate of naturalisation or to make a statutory declaration that he is a citizen of Saorstát Eireann.

Where a declaration is so required, any fee payable in connection therewith shall be paid by the registration officer as part of his registration expenses, and the declaration shall be exempt from stamp duty.

The registration officer shall during business hours allow any person to inspect and take a copy of any such declaration.

Power to obtain a certificate of birth at reduced fee.

36. Where, for the purpose of the provisions of this Act, any person requires a certificate of birth, that person shall, on presenting a written requisition in the prescribed form, and containing the prescribed particulars, and on payment of a fee of sixpence, be entitled to obtain a certified copy of any entry of the birth of that person in the register of births, under the hand of the registrar or the superintendent registrar having the custody thereof, and forms of requisition for the purpose shall, on application, be supplied without charge by every registrar of births and deaths, and by every superintendent registrar.

Hearing of claims and objections.

37. On the consideration of any claim or objection or other matter by the registration officer, any person appearing to the registration officer to be interested may appear and be heard either in person or by any other person, other than counsel, on his behalf.

Power to require evidence on oath.

38. The registration officer may at the request of any person interested, or, if he thinks fit, without such request, on the consideration of any claim or objection or other matter require that the evidence tendered by any person should be given on oath and may administer an oath for the purpose.

Provisions as to misnomer or inaccurate description.

39. No misnomer or inaccurate description of any person or place on any list or on the register, or in any notice shall prejudice the operation of this Act or these rules as respects that person or place provided that the person or place is so designated as to be commonly understood.

Special Provision in respect of the First Register.

40. The several dates prescribed by these rules as the dates before, at or after which the several acts, matters and things required by these rules to be done or not done by the registration officer, or any other person are respectively to be done or not done shall not apply to the first register prepared under this Act, or to the several acts, matters and things to be done or not done in the preparation thereof, and in lieu of such dates the Minister for Local Government shall by order appoint the respective dates before, at, or after which the several acts matters and things aforesaid shall respectively be done or not done in respect of the first register prepared under this Act and of the preparation of that register.