NYCI Opening Statement to Joint Oireachtas Committee
Opening Statement to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill, 2020 James Doorley, Deputy Director, NYCI, 8th June, 2021 Chairman, Deputies, Senators, on behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland (*NYCI is the National Representative Body for 54 voluntary organisations, working with up to 340,000 young people-see list of members in appendix 1). I want to thank to committee for the invitation to speak to you today concerning the General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020. NYCI has a long track record of promoting the active citizenship of young people and supporting their participation in our democracy. (See appendix 2 for details of our advocacy work in print/broadcast media in advance of General Election, 2020. We also ran online campaigns through Facebook, Instagram and Google ads.) As a result, we have organised campaigns to encourage and support young people to register to vote and to vote in all elections and referenda. We welcome the fact that there has been increased participation by young people in recent elections and referenda. The level of pre-election engagement, voter registration and participation in recent referenda and the 2020 General Election was unprecedented in our experience. As a result, we have a strong interest in this legislation. In the interests of brevity, I will focus on those areas of the draft legislation on which we have substantive comments and concerns. I do at the outset want to welcome the long-awaited establishment of the Electoral Commission, the introduction of a rolling electoral register, the move away from household to individual registration, the greater availability of online voter registration and the pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds.
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