Guidelines to be issued ahead of Kerry poll recount

Fresh guidelines on counting election votes will be issued to returning officers after a landmark court case over the May 2014 local elections and the counting of ballot papers.

The Supreme Court ruling, which requires a recount of election votes in Listowel, Co Kerry, means a substantially different result could be declared for the seven-seater area.

Department of Environment sources said all votes ‘from the start’ will be counted again under the supervision of the courts after the successful challenge by former Senator Dan Kiely. A full recount will now take place and due to our proportional representation system, which eliminates candidates but transfers their votes, there may be a totally different result.

Mr Kiely, who missed out on a seat in Listowel by two votes, argued that some of the votes cast should not have been included.

The local elections were held on the same day as the European elections, with voters asked to vote on candidates in both separately.

Votes with a sequence not starting with “1” were included by the returning officer and after an initial unsuccessful challenge, Mr Kiely went to the Supreme Court. The court heard on days where there is more than one election, some people cast their first and second preferences on one ballot paper, but put their third, fourth and fifth on the other.

Mr Kiely claimed a returning officer was not entitled to infer a first preference on votes with the 3,4,5 sequence if the same ballot paper did not include the number 1. The Supreme Court agreed and ordered a recount. There were 230 votes on which the returning office in Listowel made a judgement as to validity. He excluded 173 and allowed 57. Included in those 57 were ballot papers with the ‘3,4,5’ or similar sequence without a clear indication of first preference.

A new guide will be drawn up for officers ahead of the general election where any numerical sequence on a ballot paper which begins with a number other than ‘1’ or ‘one’ is not to be read as indicating a preference and, therefore, would be treated as an invalid paper.

All 14,929 votes from the count have been kept in storage and will be retrieved for the full recount under the direction of the circuit court. The recount date has yet to be decided. Councillors have been told their actions and decisions are still valid until it is held. A Department of Environment source added:

“It [the recount] means going back to the very start where all ballot papers are assembled, mixed and then counted.

The impact of this in the context of the single transferrable vote system in place in Ireland is that the ‘random’ element that arises in the distribution of vote surpluses may yield different figures to those at the original count.”

Meanwhile, Kerry County Council says Monday’s full monthly meeting will go ahead.