Post by earl on May 27, 2008 13:14:36 GMT
An Antrim man will appear in court next month as the first person in Northern Ireland to be prosecuted for allegedly not registering to vote.
Ian Withers of Potterswalls, Antrim faces a fine of up to £1,000 if convicted in the case, which may be the first of its kind in the UK. He has already denied a charge of failing to provide information to the Chief Electoral Officer under the requirements of the Representation of the People Act. A date for his full trial before Antrim Magistrates is due to be set when he next appears on June 3.
The law requiring adults to give information to the electoral officer has long been on the books, but the system for registering voters made it difficult to prosecute breaches. Under the old system — which is still in use in the rest of the UK— the head of a household could register everyone in that household. That made it difficult to prove who was responsible for failures to register.
But for the past six years Northern Ireland has had a system in which indviduals are responsible for registering themselves.
That makes it easier to identify when a person is willfully refusing to register. Soon after he took up office 18 months ago, Chief Electoral Officer Douglas Bain signalled that prosecutions could follow.
Around 200,000 people in Northern Ireland may not be registered, but a change in the law allows Mr Bain to use information from other Government agencies — including the NHS — to track down voters who've moved house.
"This is a last resort," said Mr Bain yesterday.
