Would compulsory voting empower Galway’s disaffected citizens? |
Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley
There’s a housing estate in Tuam where a third of all residents are not registered to vote.
Galway County Councillor Karey McHugh Farag (Ind) made the revelation at a local authority meeting.
She discovered that, during last year’s Local Election to County Hall, some 33% of households in Tuam’s Palace Fields were not on the Electoral Register.
There are almost 300 homes in the estate. With at least one adult living in each, that works out at 100 people who were eligible to vote, but who were not registered. They had no say in who represented them on Galway County Council.
That’s a shocking level of disconnect. And a scary level of apathy.
It is an extreme example, but not isolated.
Councillors and would-be councillors in the city have encountered similar........