Voters go to the polls today in two bye-elections to fill vacant D\u00e1il seats in Galway West and Dublin Central.<\/p>\n
Polling stations open at 7am and will remain open until 10pm.<\/p>\n
The electorate in Dublin Central has dropped by almost 6,000 since the last general election after a recent drive by An Coimisi\u00fan Toghch\u00e1in to remove duplicate names from the voting register, as well as those who have either emigrated or died.<\/p>\n
A total of 57,619 people are registered to vote in Dublin Central compared to 63,190 in 2024.<\/p>\n
The electorate in Galway West has also dropped since the general election by 234 to now stand at 103,479.<\/p>\n
Voters must bring valid ID to cast their vote while a polling card is helpful but not essential<\/p>\n
Fourteen candidates appear on the ballot paper in Dublin Central hoping to fill the seat vacated by former minister for finance Paschal Donohoe.<\/p>\n
Mr Donohoe resigned his seat in November to take up a new position with the World Bank in Washington.<\/p>\n
Seventeen candidates in Galway West are hoping to fill the vacancy created by Catherine Connolly’s election as Uachtar\u00e1n na h\u00c9ireann.<\/p>\n
This is the fourth bye-election triggered by a TD moving to \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in, and the first since Erskine Childers election in 1973.<\/p>\n
This marks the first bye-election in the history of the State where those on the islands vote in tandem with the mainland.<\/p>\n
5 boxes will be ferried across tonight from Inishbofin, Inis M\u00f3r, Inis Me\u00e1in and Inis O\u00edrr for counting tomorrow in Salthill, where 196 boxes will be counted in all.<\/p>\n
Boxes from 21 polling stations in Dublin Central will be brought to the RDS on Dublin’s southside for counting.<\/p>\n
The turnout in Dublin Central in the last General Election was 52.3%.<\/p>\n
Given turnout in bye-elections is normally lower, and the fact the electorate is smaller, Dublin Central may produce a result sometime tomorrow evening.<\/p>\n
A more protracted count is likely in Galway West – where a result might not come until Sunday.<\/p>\n
Contingencies have been made for the count in Salthill to last beyond Sunday.<\/p>\n
An Coimisi\u00fan Toghch\u00e1in is piloting a new initiative in both constituencies where people can take a sticker to illustrate that they have cast their ballot.<\/p>\n
The stickers “I’m a Voter” or “Is Votala\u00ed m\u00e9” will be available in eight polling stations in Dublin Central and one in Galway West in Knocknacarra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters go to the polls today in two bye-elections to fill vacant D\u00e1il seats in Galway West and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-461000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461000","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=461000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}