A CLARE councillor was among those to receive a vote in the Presidential election.
Almost 13 percent of voters opted to spoil their ballot in the Irish Presidential election which has resulted in Catherine Connolly (IND) becoming the tenth President of the country.
Within Co Clare, a total of 4,766 votes were spoiled which was 10.6 percent and a 90 percent increase on the 449 spoiled votes in the last Presidential election.
On the spoiled ballots in Clare, Maria Steen’s name regularly appeared, she was unsuccessful in securing the necessary twenty Oireachtas nominations to appear on the ballot. Bosco, Enoch Burke, Michael Flatley, Bob Geldof, Gerry Hutch and Scooby Doo also cropped up on ballots in the county.
Photographs of Fianna Fáil politicians also featured on the spoiled votes including that of former Defence Minister, Willie O’Dea (FF), ex Taoiseach Charlie Haughey (FF) and Kilmurry’s very own, Cllr Alan O’Callaghan (FF).
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Cllr O’Callaghan commented, “Never did I think I would see my picture on an Irish Presidential Ballot paper, the photo that was selected was rather flattering, if I do say so myself.
“It’s one thing to go out and get 1,200 number ones, another to find 800,000 and I think Bertie Ahern or Billy Kelleher would have done just that. The reality of last Friday though is that just under 214,000 people spoilt their vote and over 104,000 people voted for Jim Gavin who had pulled out of the election. That is close to 320,000 people who consciously went into a polling booth to express their anger and frustration, mainly at a lack of choice,” he added.
Fellow Killaloe Municipal District elected member, Cllr Pat Burke (FG) said the quantity of spoiled votes was alarming. “A disturbing figure was three Dublin constituencies had more spoiled votes than votes for Heather Humphreys, she hadn’t an easy election, the media rooted up the stuff as they did for all candidates”.
Labelling it as “a historic spoiled voted percentage,” Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF) suggested a process “outside of party politics to allow for more diversity” on the ballot.
Cllr Michael Shannon (FF) believed an opportunity was “wasted” by those who decided not to vote for a candidate on the ballot. “It was a wasted opportunity if the youth came in, voted and spoiled their vote, that is very disappointing. We’re always trying to encourage people to have a say. Housing, work, education, car insurance are the issues prominent to young people, they need to have their say too. Anything that discourages voting is a shame”.
He continued, “I’ve been doing tallies with the party for years, I’ve never seen anything like 200,017 deciding to spoil their vote, there is responsibility to be taken, the candidates were so limited so the people were annoyed, Catherine Connolly won and she will make a fine President, people were aggrieved that they had no choice, that was orchestrated by the main parties, the Government parties, Sinn Féin didn’t put up a candidate either, they are a party looking to be in Government, they should have fielded a candidate”.
