Register figures confirm SF fears

Sinn Féin Vice President and the party's Director of Elections, Pat Doherty MP, has said that the publication of the Six-County electoral register on Tuesday, showing another drop of around 20,000 people, should act as a wake up call to the British Government.

"The publication of the electoral register under which the forthcoming Six-County EU Election will be fought confirms what Sinn Féin have been saying for some time," he said. "The current legislation will ensure that the register will be shredded year upon year and public confidence in the electoral process will continue to fall.

"This situation cannot be allowed to continue. The legislation, which was passed at the behest of the SDLP and the unionists, is discriminatory and it must be amended. None of the parties who supported this legislation nor the British Government have yet given an explanation of the massive and growing discrepancy which exists between the census returns and the electoral register.

"Sinn Féin will continue to campaign for the restoration of the basic right to vote. We will continue to lobby a wide section of opinion both here and abroad in our efforts to get this legislation amended. What we are witnessing is, in effect, electoral fraud on a massive scale."