Voter turnout has fallen in the general election despite a big public campaign by the Electoral Commission and the registration of 400,000 new voters on the register.
National turnout at 59.71 per cent is down 3.19 per cent on the general election in February 2020 when 62.9 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote. Then taoiseach Leo Varadkar called the weekend election, the first time it was on a Saturday in the history of the State.
That turnout was 2.3 per cent lower than the 65.2 per cent in 2016. Mr Varadkar believed it would help families and younger voters living or studying away from home get to the ballot boxes. But on the day an Ireland versus Wales rugby match, GAA fixtures and the arrival of a storm with severe wind warnings may have had an impact.
This general election was held on Friday but Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan said it should have been on Saturday. “That’s a lot more convenient for most people. A lot of people are just very busy with day-to-day life and it also affects people in terms of schools being shut, childcare.”
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Mr O’Callaghan said the campaign took off in the last number of days before the election but before that “failed to take off to a certain degree and I think that that might have been a factor as well”.
In Taoiseach Simon Harris’s Wicklow constituency turnout was 67.81 per cent, well above the national figure but still down on the 70.9 per cent in 2020.
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In the Cork South-Central home of Tánaiste Micheál Martin, 60.08 per cent of the electorate voted, still lower than the 63.2 per cent at the last election.
Dublin Central is a traditionally low-turnout constituency. Home of Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, this time around it generated huge publicity and interest because of the candidacy of Gerard Hutch. Turnout rose by just over 1 per cent to 52.27 per cent from 51.2 per cent in 2020.
In the Cork South-West constituency of Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns 63.89 per cent of the electorate voted, but still lower than the 64.6 per cent who voted last time around. In Labour leader Ivana Bacik’s Dublin Bay South constituency turnout was even lower than the national figure at 47.77 per cent, while in 2020 a slightly higher 49.4 per cent of the electorate voted.
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