Connolly clear winner – but spoiled votes hit 15 per cent

"It's game over," is how one senior tally figure described the status of the presidential election race in the Longford Westmeath Constituency just over an hour into the count.

With thirty out of 177 boxes tallied, Catherine Connolly (Ind) was the clear leader, with 60.7 per cent of the valid votes. Heather Humphreys (FG) was on 32.1 per cent and Jim Gavin (FF) on 7.2 per cent, with spoiled votes running at 16.9 per cent of the total.

Comfortably before noon, the tally was complete, with a final result putting Connolly on 58.2 per cent, with Humphreys on 34.6 per cent, Gavin on 7.2 per cent.

In total, 15.1 per cent of the votes were spoiled.

Official result

When the official results were announced, at around 4pm, it was impressive to see how close to the tally the actual results were, with Catherine Connolly obtaining 22,656 (58.72 per cent) of the votes; Heather Humpreys 13,162 (34.11 per cent) and Jim Gavin 2766 (7.17 per cent).

The total electorate was 103,609; the total poll was 45,394, meaning a turnout of 43.81 per cent.

There were 6,810 invalid papers meaning that 15 per cent of voters spoiled their votes. Of the 43 constituencies across the country, Longford Westmeath had the eleventh highest level of spoiled votes, with Dublin North West having topped the list, with a 20.45 per cent spoil rates.

Spoiled votes

There has probably never been an election in which interest in the spoiled votes was so great. The fact that there was an official launch to a “Spoil The Vote” campaign meant there was effectively “another horse in the race” - even if the pedigree wasn’t classic race quality.

Some votes were deemed invalid because of a mistakes by the voters or the lack of an official stamp on the ballot paper, many of those spoiling their votes did their best to make clear why they were doing so.

Indicating their rejection of all three names on the list, some ran a simple “X” across the entire sheet, or marked X beside the name of each candidate; many went to the trouble of writing the name of one of those who had been unsuccessful in their bid to win a nomination. Some voters were even more specific, writing out messages on the ballot paper.

During the adjudication on what are formally termed “doubtful votes”, it emerged that approximately 3,500 of the 6,810 spoiled votes had writing on them.

Anecdotally, it appears the name most commonly written on the paper was that of Maria Steen, who failed by two votes to win enough support to run as a candidate. At least one paper carried the name “Conor McGregor”.

Another name that was written on some ballot papers was that of the young Tullamore teacher, Ashling Murphy, murdered on January 11 2022 while out for a run. Her name had been very much in the news in the days prior to the election due to the sentencing to prison of a number of members of the family of her killer Josef Puska, who were convicted of assisting Puska conceal his role in the murder.

Another paper was inscribed with the words “She was only ten” referencing the alleged serious sexual assault of a child in Dublin last week of a man who had been the subject of a deportation order. .

Others spotted were: “The government is a disgrace: they should hang their heads in shame”, and more mildly, “Very poor choice”.

Low interest

There was little excitement at the poll centre: the result had been a foregone conclusion going in, and all that was awaited was the detail.

At most counts, there are hundreds of people around, - politicians, party members, family and friends of candidates and people who just love the entire buzz of the count process - trading thoughts, opinions and advice.

Among those numbers, there are usually many who are happy to tally, and who even have tallying experience - but that wasn’t the case at this count: those tallying were largely doing so singly instead of in twos.

Seamus Kincaid, the whiz who has for several elections organised the tally in Longford Westmeath, explained that the downside was that the margin of error was higher than normal - but the upside was that many of those tallying were doing so for the first time, and would therefore be ready for elections in the future.

There was a lull in the afternoon, the votes were sorted by about 10.45 am, but they then had to be formally counted.

Tally breakdown

The tally figures estimated the number of votes cast in Longford Westmeath as 42,451. Of these, 6,390 (15.1 per cent) were deemed “spoiled”.

The valid vote was 36,061 - 23,739 cast in Westmeath, 11,836 cast in Longford and 486 postal votes.

Of this figure, 20,982 votes (58.2 per cent), went to Catherine Connolly; 12,485 (34.6 per cent) went to Heather Humphreys and 2,594 (7.2 per cent) went to Jim Gavin.

Further breakdown shows the electoral area in which the gap between the two lead candidates was closest was in Granard, Catherine Connolly secured 1,948 first preferences, and Heather Humphreys 1,816. Gavin’s vote was 313.

In the other Longford areas the gap was greater. In Longford, it was Connolly 2,068, Humphreys 1,400 and Gavin 275. In Ballymahon, Connolly’s vote was 2,377, Humphreys secured 1,347 and Gavin 313.

The message was very definite in the Westmeath boxes: Athlone voted Connolly 3,682, Humphreys 1,924 and Gavin 372; Moate voted 3,278 for Connolly, 2,014 for Humphreys and 475 for Gavin.

In Mullingar, Connolly’s vote amounted to 3,692, Humphreys’ to 2,004 and Gavin’s to 385, while Kinnegad voters awarded 3,702 to Connolly, 1,791 to Humphreys and 420 to Gavin.

It is understood that in some of the rural boxes, Ms Humphreys did secure a greater vote than Ms Connolly.