Aontú leader reveals he spoiled his vote amid unprecedented levels of spoiled ballots

Ellen O'Donoghue

There is no doubt that the story of the day is the presidential election, but along with that comes the story of the sheer volume of spoiled votes.

The early picture of tallies seems to back opinion polling, with Catherine Connolly holding an early lead in most constituencies across the country.

The sheer number of spoiled presidential votes could reach unprecedented levels, early tallies have indicated.

Tallies from the Catherine Connolly campaign indicated that they believe there have been around 30,000 spoiled votes so far, and the total figure could end up at around 10 per cent of those who voted, The Irish Times reported.

High levels of spoiled votes are being seen in working-class areas; however, large numbers are appearing in most boxes opened thus far.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín also revealed he spoiled his vote for the presidential election.

Speaking to reporters at the RDS Simmonscourt count centre, Mr Tóibín said: “I’m going to be brutally honest with you, and I feel weird even saying this, I spoiled my vote yesterday.”

Mr Tóibín said he drew three Xs beside the candidates and wrote in the name of Maria Steen instead.

He said: “I felt really strange doing it, I felt in some way that it was nearly wrong doing it, but I had no choice in that ballot yesterday at all.

“I had no way to exercise a political choice, and I wanted to protest that.”

Mr Tóibín said the high amount of spoiled votes and low turnout meant there was a “major element of Irish society who felt they had no voice in the race”.

He added: “In some constituencies, those spoiled votes pushed Heather Humphreys back into third place, that is a major two fingers to the political establishment.”

Mr Toibin also congratulated independent candidate Catherine Connolly ahead of her expected victory.

The spoiled votes have a series of different motivations and slogans, with quite a few people having written Maria Steen's name and Enoch Burke for President also a recurrent vote.

At the RDS in Dublin, where the majority of the capital’s votes are being counted, several ballots with “not my president”, “she was only 10″ and “Maria Steen No 1″ could be seen, The Irish Times have said.

Some contain anti-migrant messages.

In some early boxes, the number of spoiled votes is significantly higher than the number of votes for Heather Humphreys.

The total number of spoiled votes will become clear later in the day, but the volume of spoiled votes will likely delay the result this evening.

Other spoiled votes were less serious - including votes for Brad Pitt and Dustin the Turkey.

At the last 2018 presidential election, spoiled votes totalled 18,438, accounting for 1.2 per cent of the total.

Large chunks of the electorate feel unrepresented - and motivated enough to send a message about this by turning up to spoil their ballot.

In three of five constituencies in the capital, the level of spoiled votes has exceeded those for Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys and for Fianna Fáil's Jim Gavin.

The number of spoiled votes in Adamstown, where Mr Gavin is from, appeared on par with the combined vote for Ms Humphreys and Mr Gavin.

Asked about the high number of spoiled votes, Labour leader Ivana Bacik told PA: “We do have to take it seriously. We have to look and see what are people’s concerns and why they felt they were not represented by the candidates in this election.”

She added: “The level of vitriol directed at people of all political persuasions on some of those spoiled ballots is really alarming to see and I think it means we need to take that anti-democratic threat really seriously.”

However, it does look like the turnout for the election will be the lowest historically, and ironically, might have been even lower had some people not been motivated to go out and spoil their votes.