The removal of thousands of names from the voters’ list in 2015 continues to cause controversy - with new claims of a cover-up.

Peel Town Commissioners has written to the Chief Minister urging him to investigate how 20% of names came to be culled from the electoral roll.

The commissioners claim the government failed to follow the proper legal steps in removing the names from the register.

Deputy chairman Alan Jones said: ’We have attempted to find out from the government what legal authority they used to disenfranchise such a large number.

’We have been met with conflicting attempts to justify the actions of the government. We had asked the Cabinet Office to investigate and responses were confusing, conflicting and failed to give a definite answer.’

Mr Jones said the government’s response gave ’every appearance of an attempt to cover up what had happened’ - and ’as such, showed contempt for the electorate of the Isle of Man’.

Changes to the electoral register in 2015 resulted in the names of 12,252 people being taken off the voters’ list island-wide. The electoral register published on April 1 that year contained just 47,278 names.

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Government argued at the time that the register had been out of date for many years and had contained the names of people who had either died or moved away.

Bill Henderson, whose elevation to LegCo sparked a by-election in Douglas North in 2015, said it ’beggared belief’ that 800 names had been removed from the voters’ list in that constituency alone - and refused to believe they had all died or moved house.

The number of names on the list returned to pre-2015 levels by the third quarter of 2016 and by January this year it contained 60,917 names.

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.

Mr Jones said there were major consequences of removing the names, with many unable to vote and local authority members losing their seats and being unable to put themselves up for re-election.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ’The Chief Minister has received a letter from Peel Town Commissioners regarding the removal of individuals from the electoral register who had not returned their registration form in 2015. This is currently being considered and a response will be provided to the Commissioners.’