The manner in which Ireland conducts its elections is generally a source of justified pride. Proportional representation with the single transferable vote (PR-STV) allows the electorate to make sophisticated choices. It is highly sensitive to changes in public sentiment and particularly well suited to the more disparate multi-party landscape which has emerged in recent decades.
Multiple counts in multi-seat constituencies inevitably take time, so final results can sometimes take days to arrive, compared with most other European countries, where results are known within hours or even minutes.
Twenty-five years ago, the then government initiated a transition to electronic voting, introduced on a pilot basis in the 2002 general election. The resulting political fiasco, which led to €50 million worth of voting machines ultimately being sold for scrap, appeared to put a definitive end to any further attempts at modernisation.
The survival of manual voting was welcomed by many who value the theatre of democracy which election counts represent. The high drama of tallies, quotas, counts, transfers and eliminations functions as a real-time civics lesson for the general public. And the high transparency of the entire process is an effective inoculation against the sort of election denialism and conspiracism which have become widespread elsewhere.
RM Block
But there are signs that the process is straining. Longitudinal data is limited, but the proliferation of candidates in recent elections has visibly extended counts. Louth in 2024 ran to a record 24 candidates and 20 counts spread over three days. Cavan-Monaghan in 2020 began on a Saturday and did not declare its final result until Tuesday. European Parliament candidates in the Midlands-North-West constituency learned their fate several days after colleagues from other member states.
Last weekend it took almost 16 hours to complete the count in Dublin Central, where approximately 25,000 votes were cast. That is a difficult figure to defend. A return to electronic voting seems unlikely, and few would advocate it. But a judicious modernisation of the counting process is overdue. Electronic counting tools could reduce times while preserving the transparency and auditability that underpin public confidence in the system. Dramatic improvements in optical character recognition technology since the abortive reform of 2002 make this a realistic prospect.
The Electoral Commission has a remit to research and advise on these processes. It has identified electronic counting as a priority subject for investigation in 2026. That work deserves support.
The theatre of democracy is all very well in principle. But every playwright needs an editor, and even the most receptive audience has limits to its endurance.
