Just when you thought it was safe....
| 16:44 UK time, Thursday, 23 July 2009
There is likely to be a by-election in Ballymoney if councillors can't agree to coopt a replacement for Councillor Roy Wilson who quit the council recently. The DUP man cited work, family and church reasons for his departure and now his Rasharkin seat may be contested by the TUV. The council is due to meet on August 3rd and first item on the agenda is a discussion around replacing Roy Wilson. If one councillor objects it goes to byelection.
If there is a poll - most likely in late September/early October - voters should beware about bringing out-of-date ID documents with them to the polling station. It seems that expired passports, driving licenses, electoral ID cards and Translink Smartpasses are not allowed for council elections - even though they were allowed for the last Euro-poll in June. Moreover, voters who were allowed to use a Translink 60+ Smartpass, a Blind Person's SmartPass,and a Translink War Disabled SmartPass cannot do so for council elections.
It seems Parliament failed to legislate to ensure these forms of ID and expired ID could be used for Council elections. Oops.
What a headache for the Electoral Office - after spending so much energy educating people on ID for the European election.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~39~RS~)
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Martina
RASHARKIN IS OUT OF DATE
The only item a Rasharkin voter needs to bring to the polls is a well-polished and shiny prejudice against "the other side".
Susie
Carryduff
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Martina,
What is the electoral office doing to get the parties to take down the signs from the European Election? If I see another sign saying "if we win, you win" I will scream. Well the SDLP have lost so does that mean we have lost?!!!!
Stormontspy
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Oops.
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Stormontspy,
It is not the responsibility of The Electoral Office to enforce the removal of electoral posters. The piece of legislation surrounding this is Article 87 of The Roads Order (Northern Ireland). The parties have 14 days to remove the posters, after that it falls under the remit of the roads service. They will most likely get in touch with the parties themselves and if posters still remain they will remove them and bill the parties.
Ps, I'm sure you'll agree there are more than just SDLP posters still up.
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The-N-Dom
I have to say the SDLP are the only ones I still see. I used to see Sinn Fein and DUP but they are all now gone.
Stormontspy
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