Donegal electorate rises ahead of battle for ballots

As the country goes to the polls on Friday, the electorate in the Donegal constituency is up by more than 5,000 people since the last general election.

Donegal voters will cast their ballots in two constituencies with a large swathe of south Donegal included in the Sligo-Leitrim constituency.

Twenty candidates are vying for the five available seats in the Donegal constituency with 18 candidates in the mix in the four-seater Sligo-Leitrim constituency.

In the Donegal constituency, there is a total electorate of 131,306. That is up by 5,395, or 4.2%, from the 2020 general election.

Since 2016, the electorate in the Donegal constituency has risen by 11.5%.

Only Irish citizens and British citizens who live in Ireland can vote in general elections here.

In 2020, when voting took place on a Saturday, there was a turnout of 62.03% with the previous general election in 2016, seeing a turnout of 62.85%.

Most of the 267 polling stations in the Donegal constituency will be open from 7am-10pm, but the times are different on the islands with voters on Arranmore able to vote from 10am-7.30pm and from 11am-3pm on Goal, Inishbofin, Inishfree and Tory.

In south Donegal, a further 7,997 people are eligible to vote across 16 polling stations in the Ballintra, Rossnowlagh, Ballyshannon and Bundoran areas.

Counting of votes will get underway from 9am on Saturday in the Aura Leisure Centre for the Donegal constituency and in the Sligo Park Hotel for the Sligo-Leitrim constituency.

Sitting TD Joe McHugh is not running again in the Donegal constituency, but veteran former TD and MEP Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher is back on the ballot paper having lost his seat in Dáil Éireann in 2020.

The presence of 100% Redress Party candidate Charles Ward among the candidates adds a new level to this election. The party received 7,400 first preference votes in the local elections in June and had four councillors elected to Donegal County Council.

Sinn Féin saw both Pearse Doherty and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn elected on the first count in 2020, both having exceeded the 12,909 quota with the party taking 45.1% of the first preferences cast with Independent Thomas Pringle benefitting greatly from transfers.

In the four years since the 33rd Dáil was formed, McHugh resigned the Fine Gael party whip and the party has John McNulty and Nikki Bradley looking to win a seat.

Fine Gael has had at least one TD in Donegal since the election of Daniel McMenamin in Donegal East and Michael Og McFadden in 1937 and is in a firm battle to continue that sequence.

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There are no Donegal-based or born candidates running in the Sligo-Leitrim constituency, where there is at least one new TD set to be elected with Deputy Mark MacSharry announcing his departure.

Three sitting TDs, Martin Kenny of Sinn Féin, Frank Feighan of Fine Gael and Independent Marian Harkin are bidding to retain their seats.