Andersonstown News (Spring 2003) on the new voters registration procedure which was introduced in June 2002 for the North of Ireland exclusively and which should rather be called voter deselection procedure:

Stick your vote up your XXXX

Banbridge. Where the hell is Banbridge?

No disrespect to anyone, but I don't think I have actually been in Banbridge since they built the A1 motorway back in the mid '60s. Previous to that we used to have to go through Banbridge on the way to Dublin. Hillsborough, too.

It was quite a while ago and I only have a vague recollection of sitting in the backseat of a draughty Standard Ten with a car rug covering my knees with my mother and a couple of aunts singing to keep my father (God rest him) awake as he guided our wee puffer along the three-day camel ride it used to take to get to the capital city of this country. The rural dirt tracks that passed for main roads in those days were bad enough, and then cars couldn't go any faster than thirty miles an hour. None of the cars we ever had could, anyway. It would take so long to go to Dublin that you would never dream of setting out without a packed lunch of sandwiches and flasks of tea and coffee.

In those days you would quite often stop in Banbridge for tea and chips to mark the end of the first leg of your sojourn. Later, maybe, a picnic outside of Dundalk, depending on how long the Customs held you up at the Border as you presented your documents and awaited your triangular TripTic.

After the motorway came along - must be 35 years ago now - Banbridge disappeared from the map, only ever to be heard of again on the news during the Troubles whenever the Provos bombed it. I remember a young lad was tragically killed by a bomb in the town after a warning was phoned in late.

Look, I am sure Banbridge is a great place, it's even in the song 'In Banbridge Town in the County Down one morning in July...' I just didn't expect to ever have to visit it again, that's all. I mean, I don't know anybody down there, I don't intend going to live down there and it's not exactly... well, not exactly what you would call the heartland of Gaelic Ireland! No disrespect to anybody...

You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I opened a letter sent to me by the electoral office, asking me to present myself in Banbridge of all places with two documents of evidence proving where I live and how long I've lived there... so that I can be registered to vote. Registered to vote!

I was out when the collector came round to lift the forms for the electoral register, and I was delighted to learn in the media that further time had been given to allow everyone to get their name on the list. Of course I want to vote, I am determined to vote, but there is a limit. Banbridge, for crying out loud...

Never mind the fact that I don't know where Banbridge is, haven't got a clue what bus you get to go there, and feel intimidated already just by the thoughts of it. Leave aside all that lot, and there is still the time involved.

I am a working man, a member of the toiling classes. I can't take a day off just to go and register for voting. I don't know what kind of a crackpot system tries to force potential voters into wasting time going to some sort of an electoral court just to get on the register.

I have to tell myself that I haven't done anything wrong.

I just did what was asked of me and filled in the form to register to vote. For crying out loud, what do they do if you're caught on voting twice? Or, gulp, if you were knallered impersonating?

The electoral office in Banbridge kindly suggested that I might want to visit their court of decision in Belfast, which would be much handier as I do know where Belfast is, but I would still have to take the time to do that, and time is not always available for visiting electoral courts.

I thought when we were invited to forward our registration papers later than the original date that the application would be treated on exactly the same basis as the original. Had I been at home when the electoral register was collected I would not have to present myself to an electoral court to prove my worthiness for the franchise.

I am at a loss to work out how they decided who has to go to Banbridge or some other office, and who just gets the vote on the strength of their filling in the registration form. Presumably not everyone has to present themselves in person. So how did they decide who must make a personal visit to the electoral court and who doesn't have to? I am assuming that the fact that the two names in my house put forward for inclusion on the register were in Irish made no difference at all. I mean, surely the days of anti-Irish discrimination are over? Aren't they?

So here is a question for Sinn Féin, and I am happy to credit that particular party for their enthusiasm in encouraging people to register for the vote.

Registering is right and voting is our right. But the electoral office is trying to make registering to vote difficult. Much more difficult than it should be. I am not talking about how difficult the authorities have made it to actually vote. I am just talking here about the registration process.

What is your advice? Should I start out on a journey of adventure and try to find Banbridge, clutching my electricity bill and bank statement to prove where I live. Or should I follow my instincts and tell them to go shove their vote up their jumper?

Instinct urges me to tell them to go to hell, yet the spirit of 1916 wants me to cross all mountains and swim all oceans in order to be able to exercise my democratic right. What should I do?

Now, that's me. I am interested in politics and have been committed to various political and cultural causes all my life. What chance that a normal person is going to force the so-and-sos to give him or her their vote. Even if they are entitled to it. Most normal people are just going to tell the electoral office to go to hell. You fill in your form you should be on the register. Voting should be made easy.

Any normal person who is asked to go to Banbridge or anywhere else to prove they are entitled to vote will just tell the electoral office to stick their vote up their beeeep!