Donegal County Council has dismissed a claim that a high number of votes in the recent local elections in south Donegal were invalid.
The claim was made by election candidate Diarmaid Doherty.
Mr Doherty, who failed to win a seat, claimed that up to 80 papers in a bundle had been deemed invalid.
He called on Donegal County Council to publicly clarify the matter.
He said “I noticed that a significant number of papers set aside as inadmissible because they had not been properly stamped at the polling station. The bundle, in my estimation, may have contained 50-80 papers. These were ballots completed in good faith by voters, but because of failures by the polling centre staff, could not be counted.
“Polling station staff should stamp each ballot paper before handing it to voters for completion, but in the case of these inadmissible votes, this did not happen for reasons unknown.
“Was it as a result of inexperienced staff, poor training, human error or distraction, or was there a more sinister reason?
“In an attempt to get answers to these concerns on behalf of the voting public who have cast their votes in good faith and not had their voices heard, I call on Donegal County Council to make clear statements to the public on the following points:
1 Can you advise as to the total number of papers deemed inadmissible in the Donegal Electoral area due to being improperly stamped?
2 Can you advise if these have been investigated to identify if there was a pattern – perhaps all from one voting box, perhaps from a number of boxes all manned by inexperienced officials?
3 Can you advise what steps have been taken to ensure that this error will not reoccur?”
He added that he has personally contacted the Returning Officer’s department on multiple occasions over the past 3 weeks, and has yet to receive any response or even acknowledgement of my communications.
However, in a public response to Mr Doherty’s query, Donegal County Council outlined the situation including the number of invalid votes.
A spoke,sperson explained “Donegal County Council can confirm that the total number of ballot papers recorded as placed in Polling Station Ballot Boxes in the Donegal Local Electoral Area was 14,318 and the number of papers deemed invalid for want of official mark was 18.”
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