![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/002360e2-614.jpg\"\/)
\nSpoiled votes represented 13% of all votes cast on Friday in the presidential election<\/p>\n
President Michael D Higgins has congratulated Catherine Connolly on her presidential election victory as several senior politicians said a response is needed to the 213,738 spoiled votes.<\/p>\n
The independent candidate received just over 63% of first preference votes and was elected on the first count.<\/p>\n
Her opponent in the race Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys secured just over 29%.<\/p>\n
The Galway West TD’s victory in the election will trigger a by-election in the constituency to fill her seat, which must be held within six months of her inauguration as the tenth President of Ireland.<\/p>\n
Following her election victory, President Higgins said Ms Connolly will have the full support of his office as she prepares for her inauguration on 11 November.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said he looked forward “to working with the new president” while T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said “today is her day” in relation to Ms Connolly.<\/p>\n
Members of the political parties who backed Ms Connolly’s campaign, including the Green Party, Labour, People Before Profit-Solidary, Sinn F\u00e9in, and the Social Democrats, also congratulated the Galway West TD.<\/p>\n
In her victory speech last night, the president-elect vowed to be an “inclusive” president for all.<\/p>\n
Speaking at Dublin Castle, she said: “I will be a voice for peace, a voice that builds on our policy of neutrality, a voice that articulates the existential threat posed by climate change, and a voice that recognises the tremendous work being done the length and breadth of the country.<\/p>\n
“Our whole mantra during this campaign was that we can shape a new republic together and we can use our voices for those who haven’t the ability, or for whom the circumstances don’t allow it.”<\/p>\n
Watch: Catherine Connolly says she will be an ‘inclusive’ president for all<\/p>\n
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However, the presidential election was also marked by a significant number of spoiled votes, with 213,738 invalid polls nationwide.<\/p>\n
It represents 13% of all votes cast on Friday and a more than a tenfold increase on the number of spoiled votes in the last presidential election in 2018, when there were 18,438 invalid ballots.<\/p>\n
The turnout was 46%, up on the 2018 presidential election which had a turnout of 44%.<\/p>\n
An Coimisi\u00fan Toghch\u00e1in said there “will clearly be a need for deeper and further reflection” about why there were so many spoiled ballots in the election.<\/p>\n
It added the number of spoiled ballots was “significantly higher than normal”, adding that is “clear that some people chose to deliberately spoil their votes”.<\/p>\n
In the Dublin Mid-West constituency, 21% of votes cast were spoiled.<\/p>\n
Many had an “x” or slash drawn through all three candidates, or the words “spoiled” or “spoilt” written on the slip.<\/p>\n
There were also a significant number of spoiled votes with anti-Government messages, including “no democracy”, “EU puppets” and “no from me”.<\/p>\n
A number of names were also written on many invalid ballot papers in the count centre in Adamstown, including Maria Steen, who tried to become a presidential candidate but failed to get enough nominations by the deadline.<\/p>\n
\nSpoiled votes represented 13% of all votes cast on Friday in the presidential election<\/p>\n
Dublin Mid-West TD for Sinn F\u00e9in Eoin \u00d3 Broin said the spoiled votes meant that there are “people out there who are very angry, who are very unhappy”.<\/p>\n
“Our job in the time ahead is to try and convince more of those people that there is an alternative, there is a message of hope and we hear the fact that they are not happy,” he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking at Dublin Castle, the T\u00e1naiste also expressed concern about the high number of spoiled ballots.<\/p>\n
He said some voters put “quite a lot of effort in spoiling their ballot”, adding that it showed “the number of people in Ireland now who are clearly feeling disaffected or disconnected with politics”.<\/p>\n
People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy said he did not think it was a “moral failing” to spoil votes, and that it was a “legitimate choice that people can make”.<\/p>\n
When spoiled votes were excluded, Fianna F\u00e1il’s Jim Gavin, who withdrew from campaigning, secured 7% of first preference votes.<\/p>\n
Of the 3,612,957 people eligible to vote, 1,656,436 cast their vote in the 2025 presidential election, representing a turnout of 46%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Michael D Higgins has congratulated Catherine Connolly on her presidential election victory as several senior politicians said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-104642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}