 Electoral divisions returned members (guardians) to the board of guardians, to which ratepayers who paid higher rates had more votes.During and after the Great Famine, the impoverished west was redrawn to create more unions for easier administration and for computation of where suffering was most endemic.When the Irish General Register Office was established in 1864, each union became a superintendent registrar's district, thus electoral divisions together formed a dispensary or registrar's district.