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Low Voter Turnout in Derry Dishonors the Past

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According to Northern Ireland elections statistics, only 56% of registered voters in the Foyle District turned out to vote in last month's elections.  As an historian of Derry, this breaks my heart a little. Look at the photo to the left.  Those are real people.  Historical figures, some of them, like Eddie McAteer and Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Civil rights steward Vinnie Coyle.  Others, probably, not known to me.  And then the faces of the young, the hopeful, the indignant, the worried.  The faces of the civil rights movement.   Which -- of course -- was in large part a movement for for the right for every adult citizen to have a vote.