#Elections2019: Row was brewing over ‘cold storage’ Brexit seat

Just as counting was slowly edging to the finish line in the European Parliament Dublin constituency election on Monday night, whispers of a row started to filter through the RDS. Candidates disagreed over the counting of transfers from eliminated opponents. Close to midnight, the count was suspended. Lawyers arrived and counting staff were sent home.

The dispute was between Independents4Change’s Clare Daly and Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews who were battling it out for the final two MEP seats in the four-seater. Both were still thousands of votes off reaching 72,790, the quota needed to be elected. However, neither wanted to end up in fourth place, the so-called cold storage Brexit seat.

Under changes for Brexit, the Dublin constituency has gone from a three- to a four-seater. But the final seat only comes into effect if Brexit goes ahead. The quandary for Ms Daly and Mr Andrews was whether the transfer from the candidate in fifth place, Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan, could be counted and added to their final tallies.

Traditionally, when the last candidate is eliminated, remaining candidates are automatically elected without transfer votes being counted. But the dispute for the Dublin count centred on a contention by Ms Daly that Ms Boylan’s transfers should indeed be added up, which would benefit her. Mr Andrews and his advisers objected.

In the end, proceedings continued yesterday and after the 15th count, transfers from eliminated Social Democrats candidate Gary Gannon helped Ms Daly get into third place ahead of Mr Andrews. The returning officer then announced that transfers from Ms Boylan would indeed be counted and added to the final tallies.

Ms Daly later went on to take the third seat while her opponent took the ‘Brexit seat’. This row had all the hallmarks of ending up in the courts. Instead, a magnanimous Mr Andrews conceded that Ms Daly was too far ahead and took satisfaction from at least being elected as an MEP, albeit an MEP-in-waiting.