Recount ordered in Listowel elections

A total recount of votes cast in the May 2014 local elections for the Listowel electoral area of North Kerry has been ordered by the Supreme Court.

Five judges of the Supreme Court yesterday unanimously upheld former senator Dan Kiely’s claim that there was a “mistake” in the conduct of the local election within the meaning of the relevant provision of the Local Elections (Petitions and Disqualifications) Act 1974, to the extent that it rendered it unlawful.

The mistake arose from the inclusion in the count of votes which contained a sequence of numbers not starting with the number ‘1’.