NORTH WEST:AN UNSUCCESSFUL candidate in the European elections has complained to gardaí that 3,000 of his first-preference votes were initially counted as votes for Declan Ganley of Libertas.
The votes were returned to Independent Fiachra Ó Luain in the North West constituency after a recheck of the first count on Monday.
“Somehow those votes ended up where they shouldn’t have been,” Mr Ó Luain said. “I don’t want to speculate about how it happened.”
He said he had the utmost respect for the constituency’s returning officer, Kieran McDermott. “For me there is no question mark over the integrity of the returning officer but there may have been some oversight. The objective is to find that.
“I have confidence that between the gardaí and the returning officer they will establish how it could have happened.”
Mr Ó Luain said the incident “could be down to an honest mistake”.
A Garda spokesman confirmed that a complaint had been received.
Mr McDermott put the mix-up down to human error. He said votes for Mr Ó Luain and Mr Ganley were counted close together in the TF Royal Theatre in Castlebar.
The portion of Mr Ó Luain’s votes may have got mixed in with Mr Ganley’s when they had been counted and were being passed to the back of the count centre, he said. “We cannot pinpoint exactly where the mistake was made.”
Ironically, the recheck was prompted by a request from Mr Ganley.
