North’s chief electoral officer wants office to stay in Derry
The North’s chief electoral officer has said he wants to see a staffed office remain in Derry after concerns were raised over the future of the service.
The reassurance comes after a senior figure from the NIPSA union warned in October that the local council could be tasked with overseeing future elections if plans to close the local office in the city go ahead.
Dooley Harte, Higher Executive Officer with the NIPSA union, told a meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Governance and Strategic Planning Committee the union had seen proposals that showed a “referred option” for centralising electoral services to Belfast.
The move would result in the closure of six regional offices, including Queen Street in Derry, where five full-time staff are currently employed.
The proposals are currently the subject of an ongoing consultation.
Following October’s meeting, councillors requested that the North’s chief electoral officer, Graham Shields, appear before them to clarify the future of the local office.
Addressing a meeting of the same committee this week, Mr Shields (pictured) told elected members that they would be introducing a new digitised system which would go live here at the end of next year, which he said would “modernise the electoral process and bring it into the 21st century.”
He added tthe new system had already would “significantly reduce” the amount of paperwork involved in the electoral process, and had already been rolled out in England, Scotland and Wales where it ‘was found to work very well’.
He continued the new digitised system would be “more efficient” and it would take “two or three minutes to register.”
Under the new proposals, he added, council could be asked to assist with elections, and provide accommodation for electoral staff.
Mr Shields, who will retire from his post at the end of this year, added it was his “preferred option”’ that an electoral office would remain in the city “ideally in the city centre.”