Lex Ferenda

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 14 days (excluding Sun/bank holiday) before the election - which has been confirmed as Saturday 5th.