2,000 students have been registered to vote in the General Elections by Irish Students’ Unions and the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) since last Thursday, according to a tweet this evening from USI President Lorna Fitzpatrick.
Laura Beston, President of Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU) has stated that 415 students have registered to vote in Trinity over the past two days. TCDSU were in the Arts Building on Monday and the Hamilton today, along with representatives from Newstalk, the National Youth Council of Ireland, and Spunout to enable students to register.
University College Cork Students’ Union (UCCSU) say they registered 683 students today, and have handed out over 800 forms.
USI’s GenerationVote campaign, to encourage students to register to vote, was run in August and September of 2019, and was successful in registering thousands of students.
USI relaunched the campaign after it became clear that many students who had registered in the last few months would not be eligible to vote in the upcoming election, without re-registering to be added to the supplementary register. This is due to the fact that the election date has been set for before the register of electors is updated on February 15.
It is still possible to register in time to vote in the election and local council offices will accept forms up until until 5pm tomorrow evening. Voting will commence on February 8 2020 for the General Election.
