Concerns raised over 200,000-plus spoilt votes in Irish presidential election

Ireland’s political leaders have said a response is needed to the 213,738 spoilt votes in Ireland’s presidential election.

It represents 13% of all votes cast on Friday, and a more than tenfold increase on the number of spoilt votes in the last presidential election, when there were 18,438 invalid ballots.

The turnout was 46%, up on the 2018 presidential election which had a turnout of 44%.

Ireland’s electoral commission has said there “will clearly be a need for deeper and further reflection” about why there were so many spoilt ballots in the presidential election.

An Coimisiun Toghchain said the number of spoilt ballots “is significantly higher than normal and it is clear that some people chose to deliberately spoil their votes”.

In the Dublin Mid-West constituency, 21% of votes cast were spoilt.

Many had an “x” or slash drawn through all three candidates, or the words “spoiled” or “spoilt” written on the slip.

There were also a significant number of spoilt votes with anti-Government messages on them, including “no democracy”, “EU puppets” and “no from me”.

A number of names were also written on many spoilt ballot papers in the count centre in Adamstown, including Maria Steen, who tried to become a presidential candidate but failed to get enough nominations by the deadline.

One ballot paper had a sticker of Mrs Steen on it.

Other names seen written on spoilt ballot papers in Adamstown included Enoch Burke, Father Ted, Michael Collins, Bobby Sands, Dustin the Turkey, Donald Duck and Donald Trump.

Speaking at Dublin Castle, Irish premier Micheal Martin said: “It’s a worry”.

“I think, first of all, people are entitled to vote, people are entitled not to vote, and I suppose people are entitled in our system to spoil their votes,” he said.

“You do have to try and interpret and listen to that as best you can.

“I think there’s probably an issue with the restrictive nature of how one gets on the ballot, and that’s something that collectively, the Oireachtas can look at, and a lot of parties didn’t nominate candidates this time, so hence, by definition, you’re going to get fewer candidates.

“I believe that it’s not fair to say to some parties, and indeed independents, that you must allow someone to get on the ballot even if you disagree fundamentally with their perspectives and their views, I don’t think that makes sense.

“But there might be other mechanisms that would allow for a broader representation and to allow people to come through. I think that needs to be looked at.”

Irish deputy premier Simon Harris expressed concern about the high number of spoiled ballots and said some voters put “quite a lot of effort in spoiling their ballot”.

He said it showed “the number of people in Ireland now who are clearly feeling disaffected or disconnected with politics”.

Dublin Mid-West TD for Sinn Fein, Eoin O Broin, said the spoiled votes meant that there are “people out there who are very angry, who are very unhappy”.

“Our job in the time ahead is to try and convince more of those people that there is an alternative, there is a message of hope, and we hear the fact that they are not happy. So, there is a job of work to do afterwards.”

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said he did not think it was a “moral failing” to spoil votes, and that it was a “legitimate choice that people can make”.

“There is going to be a challenge for everybody in politics, but I would say for the left in particular, that there is a group of people who are very disaffected, very alienated, very angry at the political system.”