A FINE GAEL Minister and election candidate has said an error between An Post and local authorities resulted in tens of thousands of voters in Galway East, Cork North-Central and Cork North-West getting the wrong election material.

Colm Burke is a Fine Gael candidate for Cork North-Central and said the issue meant the Litir um Thoghcháin was delivered to voters in the wrong constituency.

Each candidate in an election is entitled to send an election letter to each household in their constituency.

Burke said the Litir um Thoghcháin is an “important part of the electoral process” and noted that while An Post delivers the letters, local authorities are responsible for providing the names and addresses of every voter by constituency.

Burke added that election letters from candidates in Cork East have been sent to almost 15,000 voters in Cork North-Central and Cork North-West.

An Post has said the issue “appears to lie with the constituency boundary changes between the last election and this”.

Boundary changes

Burke said the issue arose because the information used was based on the constituencies from the last general election in 2020.

Last August, a massive overhaul of the Dáil constituencies was confirmed following a review of their boundaries, which resulted in in four new constituencies being created, bringing the total number to 43.

This has also resulted in more Dáil seats, which will rise from the current 160 to 174 after the general election.

Burke said he understands that a similar issue has happened in Galway East, where voters received letters from Roscommon-Galway candidates.

“Constituency boundaries have changed since the last election and this would seem to have been a contributing factor to these errors occurring, however the Electoral Commission reported on new boundaries in August 2023,” said Burke.

He added the error “may make a case for the Electoral Commission to take over this role nationally, to ensure electoral registers are updated and centrally stored”.

Fine Gael's Colm Burke Fine Gael Fine Gael

Speaking to The Journal, Burke said that An Post informed him that it received its information from the local authority.

“For instance, I looked for a register from the local authority in September, and the Mallow area was still marked down as Cork East on the register,” said Burke.

Mallow’s urban and rural electoral divisions moved from Cork East to Cork North-Central during the constituency changes.

“I think that’s where the confusion rose,” said Burke, “we only got a final set of registers in the last 10 days, showing that Mallow was now in Cork North-Central.”

Burke said the issue is “disappointing” and remarked that this is especially so in the Mallow area.

“They got a drop in relation to the three Fine Gael candidates running in Cork North-Central, and the same day they got a drop from An Post for the two candidates running in Cork East.

“People were asking locally whether Fine Gael were now running five candidates, and it was really confusing for people.”

Burke added that it’s “very confusing for people anywhere on the borderline, because you literally don’t know”.

[You can see who is running in your constituency using The Journal's candidate database]

“In fairness to the council, it does now have correct registers available, but they were very late in the day,” said Burke.

In a statement to The Journal, a spokesperson for An Post said the issue “does appear to lie with the constituency boundary changes between the last election and this”.

“We are working with the local authorities and others involved to resolve the issue and make sure that the relevant election material is delivered to each area,” added the spokesperson.

In a separate incident, An Post said it will undertake an investigation after a large number of election letters were found thrown into a residential bin in Cabra.

In a video showing the discarded Litir Um Thoghcháin, hundreds belonging to Social Democrats candidate Gary Gannon and Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe are visible.

An Post said it is “investigating the matter and working with the Social Democrats to establish what occurred”.