‘Slur on democracy’ - Mayo councillors on TD’s spoiled vote

Multiple Mayo County Councillors have spoken out on the decision of Aontu representatives to spoil their vote in the 2025 Presidential Elections.

The election, which occurred on Friday, October 24, saw Catherine Connolly defeat Heather Humphreys to become the tenth person to hold the office since the State’s inception. The election, though, did not come without its controversies, most notably the decision of 12.9 percent of people within the county to spoil their vote.

Among those 6,311 people was Aontú TD Paul Lawless. The other Aontu TD, and party leader Peadar Toibín, also spoiled his vote, stating “I had no way to exercise a political choice and I wanted to protest that.”

The issue of Aontú members was one which reared its head at the November meeting of the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District.

First to speak on the issue was Cllr Patsy O’Brien: “For any public representative to come out and say to spoil their vote, I think it's incredible,” he stated. “Listen, that's up to the people themselves to do what they want to do. Democracy is democracy.

“Our leaders and our TDs should not. The Aontú candidate, the Aontú representative has said it publicly, that he spoiled his vote. And his leader, Peadar Tóibín has spoiled his vote.

“Can I ask the question, when the next general election comes, will those people ask the people to spoil their vote? I don't think they will. I think it's incredible.

“I certainly wouldn't have anything to do with it, shame on those people who would say that.”

Cllr Damien Ryan was quick to re-iterate the words of Councillor O’Brien, as well as re-iterating his support for the current process to appear on the ballot paper.

“Too many people lost their lives for the ability and the right to vote, and to go out and to spoil your vote is a slur on democracy.

“One lesson that should come out of the whole Presidential election is there's nothing wrong with the nomination process. There was a nomination available from this local authority, but not one candidate asked for it personally, and that's why they didn't get it.

“Close of nominations should be three months before any election. All that happened here was candidates were waiting and waiting and waiting to see what the field was like before they declared an interest, and the lead-in was far too short.

“We’ve ones now crying that didn't get nominations. They had plenty of opportunity to declare last March and April if they wanted to.

“Any of us that seek an election to a local authority, or indeed anybody looking to be elected to national Parliament, we're all out twelve months in advance, and if we're not we don't get there, and it should be the same for the presidential election.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme

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