Removal of thousands of names from the voters’ list in 2015 was ’unlawful’, a Tynwald Day petition to be lodged by Peel commissioners will claim.

Commissioners Alan Jones, Ian Davison, Christine Moughtin, David Lace, Eddie Convery, Hazel Hannan and Ben Heath say the registration officer did not have the legal power to remove names from the electoral register.

Changes to the electoral register in 2015 resulted in some 20% of names being culled from the electoral roll.

A total of 12,252 people were taken off the voters’ list island-wide and about 100 in the Peel polling district alone.

Among those taken off the voters’ list were two serving Peel commissioners.

Previously, names were left on the list if there was no response from a property.

The changes meant voters had to return a completed registration form and were removed from the list if they didn’t.

Government argued at the time that the register had been out of date for many years and had contained the names of people who had either died or moved away.

The number of names on the list returned to pre-2015 levels by the third quarter of 2016.

Peel Town Commissioners made Freedom of Information requests to the Cabinet Office and Attorney General Chambers and found that no formal legal advice was sought or received prior to the names being removed.

And last year, they urged the Chief Minister to investigate, claiming government’s approach gave ’every appearance of an attempt to cover up what had happened’.

But an independent inquiry conducted by advocate Paul Morris concluded in a confidential report last September that the Commissioners’ complaint was ’misconceived’ and no further action should be taken against the Chief Secretary.

The petitioners are calling for a Tynwald select committee to investigate the ’unlawful’ removal of names from the register.

They say in their petition: ’Regardless of Mr Morris’s findings it is clear and unambiguous that section 5 of the [Registration of Electors] Act does not give any powers to the registration officer to remove names from the register.

’It gives powers only to prosecute persons who fail to provide information or who give false information.’

The Commissioners say they are time-barred from presenting a petition of doleance and precluded from making a complaint to the Commissioner for Administration - and so the only course of action left is a petition to Tynwald.

They say: ’There is a clear public interest in this matter. The protection of a citizen’s right to vote should not be arbitrarily removed.’