Tóibín spoiled his vote and wrote in Maria Steen

Leader of Aontu Peadar Tóibín (Brian Lawless/PA)

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has revealed he spoiled his vote for the presidential election.

There has been a significant number of spoiled votes in the election, with many of the ballots also containing anti-Government messages.

The small field of candidates has drawn criticism of the nomination criteria for the post.

To be eligible to run, a candidate must be over the age of 35 and have been nominated either by 20 members of the Oireachtas or four local authorities.

No candidate was successful through the local authority route while an independent, Maria Steen, fell short of securing the necessary support from elected TDs (MPs) and senators.

Dissatisfaction with the nomination process and the choice of official candidates has led to some activists launching a “#SpoilTheVote” campaign.

Maria Steen speaking to the media outside Leinster House (Brian Lawless/AP)

Some of those spoiling their ballots have written in the names of candidates who did not reach the nomination threshold, such as Ms Steen.

Speaking to reporters at the RDS Simmonscourt count centre, Mr Tóibín said: “I’m going to be brutally honest with you, and I feel weird even saying this, I spoiled my vote yesterday.”

Mr Tóibín said he drew three Xs beside the candidates and wrote in the name of Maria Steen instead.

He said: “I felt really strange doing it, I felt in some way that it was nearly wrong doing it, but I had no choice in that ballot yesterday at all.

“I had no way to exercise a political choice and I wanted to protest that.”

Asked if he had undermined democracy by spoiling his own voting paper, Mr Tóibín said: “Political choice is the essence of democracy.

“The engineers of the absence of that political choice were Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and as a result they have led to what happened yesterday.”

He said those parties had blocked other candidates from entering the race for “narrow political reasons”.

Mr Tóibín said the high amount of spoiled votes and low turnout meant there was a “major element of Irish society who felt they had no voice in the race”.

He added: “In some constituencies those spoiled votes pushed Heather Humphreys back into third place, that is a major two fingers to the political establishment.”

Mr Tóibín also congratulated independent candidate Catherine Connolly ahead of her expected victory.