Over 6,000 votes were spoiled in Mayo

The new President of Ireland, Galway-West Independent TD Catherine Connolly, received a strong endorsement in Mayo, winning 65% of the valid poll compared to 28% for Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys. 

However, one of the most notable features of the presidential election in Mayo - as in the rest of the country - was the number of spoiled votes. of the 48,903 people who cast votes in Mayo last Friday, some 6,311 spoiled their ballot paper, representing almost 13% of the Mayo electorate. 

The figure far eclipses the number of spoiled votes in past elections in Mayo. For example, in the general election last November, there were only 451 spoiled votes in the Mayo constituency, which was 0.6% of the total vote of 71,317.

In the last presidential election in 2018, there were 593 spoiled votes in the county, 1.4% of the total vote of 42,027, and there was a similar number of spoiled votes in Mayo in the presidential ballot in 2011 when 567 votes, or just over 1% of the total votes, were spoiled.

For context, if a candidate on the ballot paper in Mayo at last November's general election received the same number of first-preference votes as were spoiled in Mayo last Friday, they would have been in fourth-place in the five-seater constituency after the first count.

Turnout in Mayo was broadly the same as the 2018 presidential election at 45%, but it was down in most other constituencies around the country. Independent Catherine Connolly received 28,039 votes in Mayo compared to 11,957 for Heather Humphreys. Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin, the former Dublin senior football manager who remained on the ballot despite withdrawing from active campaigning, received 2,596 votes in Mayo, or 6% of the total poll.

In Sligo-Leitrim, Catherine Connolly received 63.46% of the poll, compared to 31.36% for Humphreys and 5.18% for Gavin. 

Connolly was backed by a group of non-government parties including Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats, People Before Profit, the Green Party, Solidarity and 100% Redress. Speaking at the Castlebar Count Centre last Saturday, Sinn Féin TD for Mayo Rose Conway-Walsh said the manner of Connolly’s campaign and subsequent victory marked a significant day in Irish politics.

"I think it's wonderful news and my first thoughts to the people of Mayo are that of gratitude. I feel proud of the people who saw the authenticity of Catherine Connolly and saw through the dirty tricks campaign against her," she said, referring to a bruising election campaign where Fine Gael were accused of attempting to "smear" their opponent. "What is really significant is the alliance of the opposition and how they held together throughout the campaign to focus on winning the tenth Presidential election."

Ms Connolly becomes the second Galway-West TD in succession to take up residency at the Áras - following in the footsteps of her political mentor Michael D Higgins - and the third from Connacht in the past 35 years after Mary Robinson in 1990. 

However, much of the attention over the weekend was on the huge number of spoiled votes 

Aontú TD Paul Lawless said the message to take away from this election was that there is a large cohort of people who are not being listened to.

“We have seen record numbers of our fellow citizens remain at home, disengaged. We have seen a record number of spoiled ballots, a silent yet deliberate act of protest,” he said. “Even before we account for the Gavin vote which in its own right, represents a form of spoil, the rejection of the political establishment has reached historic heights. When one adds those votes together, the message becomes unmistakable. The people are not being heard. 

“The election did not merely reveal a winner, it revealed a crisis of democracy. The loudest voice in Ireland is the silence of those who refuse to be complicit in a politics that no longer speaks for them.”