After all the celebrity wannabes, in-party candidate rows, shock revelations and a withdrawal, viral videos, alleged smears and election “shambles” claims, the presidential election is finally over – bar the counting.
As ballot boxes are opened, what should voters, pundits and election watchers look out for?
Counting
It could be all over as early as 9.30am “if the outcome is as decisive as the polls predict”, according to one returning officer.
Opinion polls over the past nine days gave Independent candidate Catherine Connolly a commanding lead over her Fine Gael rival Heather Humphreys. The Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll on October 16th gave Connolly an 18-point lead. The Business Post/Red C poll on Wednesday had the Galway politician 19 points ahead, while the Irish Independent/Ireland Thinks poll on Thursday had her 15 points ahead.
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If there is cross-party co-operation and the tallymen and women from all parties turn up, collation of a number of tallies across the country could show a prediction within the hour of the ballot boxes opening at 9am.
The tallies could be slower if Fianna Fáil do not show up because their candidate Jim Gavin ended his campaign over a 16-year-old dispute with a tenant (though he remained on the ballot due to the timing of his departure) and if Fine Gael are despondent because of the polls.
A first count, which is likely to be the only count if Connolly’s performance in the opinion polls is repeated in the actual count, could take until around lunchtime with collating, checking and adjudication of spoiled votes. There may be less interest in the arbitration of spoiled votes if the prediction is decisive.
There are, of course, no guarantees but a result could emerge relatively quickly.
Turnout
In eight contested presidential elections in the State’s history, the highest turnout of 65.3 per cent was recorded in 1966 when there were just two candidates. This election has three candidates on the ballot: Humphreys, Connolly and Gavin.
Almost 60 years ago, Fianna Fáil’s Éamon de Valera and Fine Gael’s Tom O’Higgins slugged it out in a fiercely contested campaign, with just 10,717 votes separating two. Fianna Fáil and de Valera emerged victorious in the end.
Mary Robinson’s election in 1990 resulted in the second highest turnout with 64.1 per cent of the eligible population casting their ballot. (There are 3.6 million eligible voters on the register this year.)
Excluding those two elections, turnout has varied, but it fell to a historic low in the last election, with just 43.9 per cent of voters going to the polls to re-elect President Michael D Higgins.
There are expectations that this election could set a new low, with some estimates putting it potentially as low as 37 per cent.
Art O’Leary, chief executive of the Electoral Commission/An Coimisiún Toghcháin, says it has no target.
“I would hope rather than saying it’s a target,” he said. “I would hope that it would be no less than the presidential election turnout the last time.”
Spoiled votes
There are heightened expectations that there could be a large increase in the number of spoiled votes. This is partly due to public dissatisfaction about having a choice of just two active candidates and one withdrawn candidate who is still on the ballot. A campaign to “spoil your vote” has been active on social media.
In the 2011 election, when President Higgins was first elected, just over 1.04 per cent of people who cast a ballot spoiled their vote. On his re-election in 2018, this rose to 1.23 per cent.
The campaign appealing to voters to spoil their vote could also have an impact. This was organised by supporters of Maria Steen, the conservative campaigner who fell two short of the required 20 Oireachtas members to secure a nomination to get her name on the ballot.
Supporters of the candidates on the ballot paper have appealed to voters not to spoil their votes.
Asked for the Electoral Commission’s view, O’Leary said a person “can choose to spoil their vote”, but added: “All we say in response to that is that one of these candidates will be elected president and if you want your voice to be heard in this election, then you should vote for a candidate.”
O’Leary is concerned about people unintentionally spoiling their votes and leaving the polling station not knowing they have done so. He says voters sometimes list their preferences and then add something like “Up the Dubs” or “Mayo for Sam”. A returning officer could consider this a spoiled vote, he warns.
What happens to votes for Jim Gavin?
This is uncharted territory and the seismic shock of the campaign.
The big question here is: will Fianna Fáil voters actually turn out and back their “ghost” candidate? And if they do that will, they then give their number two to Humphreys, the candidate running for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil’s Coalition partner in Government?
This leads to further questions, such as will they turn out in sufficient numbers for Fianna Fáil to secure the necessary 12.5 per cent of votes to bank a refund of some campaign funds?
Gavin’s ranking in the polls varied from 5 per cent to 10 per cent and back to 7 per cent. “That’s one in eight votes he’d need,” a Fianna Fáil TD pointed out, with little hope. It is unlikely but elections are not over until the final count is in.
It is theoretically possible that Gavin could top the poll and win the election. If he did and decides not to accept the role, it would mean another election within 60 days. That would be a seismic outcome, were it to happen, but the chances are remote.
Bellwether constituencies to watch
Observers of early tallies will be looking at whether Connolly’s large lead over Humphreys in the opinion polls is repeated in the actual ballot.
Questions to ask include whether the Fine Gael candidate can close the gap with those undecided voters (around one in five voters in the polls), or will poll predictions prove correct? And will those polled actually turn out to vote?
Dún Laoghaire, a Fine Gael stronghold, is a bellwether constituency. If the candidate is not faring well there, she is clearly in big trouble and the polls showing a landslide for Connolly may be proven correct.
Conservative “middle Ireland” constituencies such as Roscommon-Galway and Limerick County will also tell a tale: will they act on that final Fine Gael appeal during the campaign to show the world Ireland is “not a far-left” country?
Vote comparison
Finally, will the winner match the vote President Higgins secured in 2011 or even 2018?
At his first attempt in 2011, when there were seven candidates, Higgins secured 701,101 first preferences. On the fourth and final count, he was elected with a total of 1,007,104 votes.
Seven years later, with six candidates in the running, there was just one count. President Higgins was re-elected with 822,566 votes.
Will the winner of this election be as popular? The count will tell.
