Mr. James Doorley:

On behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, I thank the committee for the invitation to speak to it today concerning the general scheme of the electoral reform Bill 2020.

The National Youth Council of Ireland has a long track record of promoting the active citizenship of young people and supporting their participation in our democracy. We have outlined in our written submission the work we did in advance of the 2020 general election. As a result, we have organised campaigns to encourage and support young people to register to vote and to vote in all elections and referenda. We welcome the fact that there has been increased participation by young people in recent elections and referenda. The level of pre-election engagement, voter registration and participation in recent referenda and in the 2020 general election was unprecedented, in our experience.

We have called for the establishment of an electoral commission for many years. As a result, we have a strong interest in this legislation. In the interests of brevity, I will focus on those areas of the draft legislation on which we have substantive comments and concerns. I do, at the outset, welcome the long-awaited establishment of the electoral commission, the introduction of the rolling electoral register, the move away from household to individual registration, the greater availability of online voter registration, and the pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds. I will now outline our comments and concerns on particular sections of the legislation.

In relation to head 5, membership of the electoral commission, we understand the integrity and independence of our elections is vital and we understand the rationale for using the current membership model of both the Referendum Commission of Ireland and Standards in Public Office, SIPO, with regard to the membership of the electoral commission. However, we believe that if we are serious about promoting greater participation by young people and, indeed, by under-represented groups, the legislation should explicitly include provision for a youth representative and-or others who have experience of promoting participation by those from under-represented groups in the electoral process. We also believe the electoral commission should have a member with expertise in IT systems and digital cybersecurity, given the remit of the commission and importance of this expertise now and into the future.

On head 28, functions of the electoral commission, we are disappointed the remit of the electoral commission omits key functions. We note the proposed functions are referred to as “initial functions” and that other functions could be assigned to the commission over time. However, since it has taken us more than 14 years to get this far, since the first commitment to establish an electoral commission was made in 2007, we believe additional functions should be included in the legislation which can be enacted and commenced over time. For example, under head 30, the electoral commission will have the remit to promote public awareness of a referendum and encourage the electorate to vote at that referendum. However, the commission has not been assigned the same role with regard to promoting awareness of an election and encouraging the electorate to vote. We believe the commission should have an explicit role in increasing electoral participation and should be empowered to undertake its own actions and support actions by non-governmental and non-partisan bodies which are solely concerned with promoting voter participation. Head 77 does refer to the electoral commission having a role to "increase participation in our political processes through voter education". In our view, this appears to be vague and limited. It needs to be clarified and further expanded when the full Bill is published.

Likewise, the commission has not been given an explicit function to promote voter registration, which we believe is a major and significant omission. In 2007, a poll conducted for us by Red C found that 22% of young people under the age of 30 were not registered to vote. Based on the current population cohorts, that would mean that up 155,000 young people were not on the electoral rolls. We believe democracy is diminished and undermined when so many young people are excluded. We have to take into account that every year we have to get 60,000 young people on the electoral rolls. We believe the work to promote voter registration should not be left largely to voluntary youth organisations or, indeed, other organisations such as us, the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, and SpunOut, which are doing their best on limited resources to encourage and support young people to register to vote.

We also welcome the inclusion of a research function in the remit of the commission, but it does appear limited to electoral policy and procedure. A previous contributor to the committee's deliberations referred to it as tightly defined and unambitious. We agree. If we are going to look at how we increase participation of those who are under-represented, we believe the commission should have a wider remit to undertake and commission research on electoral participation, means to increase turnout, and barriers to registration to vote. We are particularly interested in research on examining ways to support and increase the participation of young people. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, produced a report on the 2011 general election. However, we have had two general elections, two sets of local and European elections, and numerous referenda since then, and we do not have any detailed data or research on voter participation available. In the absence of regular and robust data, it will be difficult for the electoral commission to contribute to policy and advise Government, as set out in the legislation.

The other area is oversight of the electoral register. Many aspects of the electoral system function well and, most importantly, have the confidence and trust of the people. However, we are concerned about the voter registration system. We are of the view that it is not fit for purpose as it is under-resourced, inconsistent and incomplete. We are running 21st century elections with 19th century processes. This is not a reflection on either the staff of the franchise unit in the Department or on the many staff in the local authorities, who do tremendous work on tight timeframes, especially in advance of elections. I am sure members of the committee are familiar with this. What we are saying is that the registration system is under-resourced and outdated. We welcome the move towards a rolling register and towards online registration, which will make it easier for young people to register to vote. We would have anticipated that the legislation would have assigned responsibility for the electoral register to the electoral commission. Instead, it has been given an oversight role. We are concerned that, instead of being a regulatory body with the powers and resources to reform and improve the electoral register and registration process, the electoral commission appears limited to undertaking research and making recommendations. This, in our view, will not give the commission explicit authority to address the inadequacies in the individual electoral registers which are compiled by the local authorities.

While head 90 provides for the development of a national shared electoral register, it is not clear if and when this will happen. This has already been provided for in legislation for 20 years and has not occurred. We accept the establishment of an electoral commission may make this more likely, but we would have preferred this to have been more definitive. We know from other jurisdictions, such as Canada, that up to 17% of electoral information changes each year. This is especially an issue for young people, who are highly mobile. It is important, therefore, we have a national database that does not lose voters in the administrative cracks. As I said, young people are moving around and may deal with three or four local authorities and electoral registers over a number of years. They can get lost in the system and end up not having a vote when it comes to an election.

We welcome the introduction of the pending electoral list which will allow young people aged 16 and 17 to register to vote so that they do not have to wait until they turn 18. However, we call on the Government, as we have for many years, to implement the commitments that the Convention on the Constitution recommended to extend voting rights to young people aged 16 and 17.

We believe this can be done as a first step by means of legislation for the upcoming 2024 local and European elections.

Those are the main issues we have with the Electoral Reform Bill, as outlined, but, as I said, there are also have other issues. I thank members for their time and attention. I am happy to answer any questions or comments they may have.