At least one in five voters will be required to produce some form of identification at polling stations at the general election next year under guidelines issued to all local authorities in recent months.
In a bid to counteract electoral fraud, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche issued a circular in recent months to all local authorities and returning officers advising on measures to be taken at polling stations during the election, to follow up on the updating of the electoral register.
It came as the latest figures available suggest that at least two counties have more people registered to vote than there are people aged over 18.
It has emerged that the register in Co Louth now stands at 92,000, which is 14 per cent above what should be expected under the 2006 census. In Co Donegal the new draft register has 115,600 names, which is 10 per cent more than the number of people aged 18 years and over believed to be resident in the county.
Yesterday Mr Roche said he expected councils with significant deviations would be re-examining their registers to identify any serious anomalies.
He added that there would not be an extension of the November 25th deadline for getting added to the draft register, because it would not provide adequate time for the publication of the official register by February 1st next year. "After the 25th closing date, councils will have a month to do all of the back-office work and to perfect the register," he said.
However, he said it would be equally important to ensure that strict measures were in place on voting day to guard against electoral fraud. He said the state of the old register was "a scandal in a modern democracy". "I am hoping to meet with members of the Oireachtas to discuss this, and to see what can be done to prevent it from happening again."
Mr Roche was criticised, however, for refusing to extend the deadline. Fine Gael environment spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said Mr Roche could make a special order to extend it beyond November 25th.
"The deadline is only two weeks away and it is ridiculous to think that this allows sufficient time for the army of eligible voters who are excluded from the register to get on it," he said.