VOTERS IN THE Dublin Bay South by-election will be asked to bring their own pens or pencils to the polling station as part of public health measures.

Pencils will still be available at the polling stations if they are required, but the request represents one of several Covid-19 measures being put in place ahead of the 8 July poll. 

Housing and Local Government Minister Darragh O’Brien also said that people are to be allowed enter themselves on the supplemental postal voter list if they cannot vote in person. 

This would allow constituents who may be self-isolating or restricting their movements to vote in the by-election, although they must complete an application form and return it before 2 July. 

The Dublin City Returning Officer has also outlined a range of different measures that will be in place during polling, noting that “this is the first time an election has been held during a pandemic”. 

Among the measures in place are the requests that people vote during quieter periods, that they use hand sanitiser and also “do not linger inside the building to chat to friends or neighbours”. 

Face coverings will also be needed inside the polling station and people will be requested to use their own pens. This is not a requirement, however. 

“If you do not have a pen or pencil, the polling staff will provide you with a new pencil. There is no need to return the pencil to the polling staff,” the returning officer says. 

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Voting is to take place between 7am and 10.30pm on 8 July. 

Counting is to take place as usual the day following the vote but the returning officer has said that social distancing will be maintained within the RDS count centre and that access will be restricted to “election staff, candidates, their agents and media”. 

Nominations for the vote in less than two weeks’ time are now completed, with fifteen candidates on the ballot seeking the vacant seat. 

Every Irish and British citizen included in the register of electors in the Dublin Bay South constituency can vote at the by-election with the returning officer saying the electorate is 72,302 people

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