ID card cancellation procedure may be reviewed

The Electoral Commission is considering reviewing its procedure of 'cancelling' new uncollected ID cards in view of the costs involved, electoral commissioner Carmel Degabriele said.

So far the commission has had to cancel the ID cards of thousands of people in 14 localities after they failed to collect them by the stipulated time and date advertised in the media, he said.

Mr Degabriele was contacted after police inspector Pierre Micallef Grimaud told The Times that his new ID card had been "burnt" after he failed to collect it on time.

"On May 16, still in my police uniform, I went to Ta' Xbiex council to collect my ID card and that of my wife. The council was closed, but a woman opened and told me that I had missed the deadline by a day," he said.

"She said that if I rushed to Evans' Building I might be able to retrieve the ID cards before they were burnt. The process was set to start at 6 p.m. I could not believe it.

"I rushed off and was at the building at 5.45 p.m. I was informed that the cancellation process had started early and the ID cards had already been destroyed.

"I was also told that my wife and I will have to go through the entire process again. This policy is an incredible waste of financial and human resources," he said.

Mr Degabriele agreed that the procedure was leading to a waste of resources.

"Since the number of uncollected ID cards is much larger than we expected, the commission is now considering reviewing its procedures," he said.

Mr Degabriele explained that the procedure adopted to date was that people applied for their new cards and then went to collect them some time later from the respective police stations, local councils or the commission. If these were not collected, they were destroyed for security reasons.

"The collection times are being advertised in the media. To date, ID cards in 14 localities have been cancelled after the lapse of the stipulated time," he said.

Mr Degabriele stressed that the ID cards were being cancelled and not burnt.

"Several discussions were carried out before the commission decided to adopt this practice," he said.

"We had thought that people would be excited about collecting the ID cards since it's a whole new concept and design, but it seems this has not been the case," he said.

Mr Degabriele explained that there are many security issues attached to the ID card, including the voting document, so they had to be careful to ensure that uncollected cards were not left lying around.