Cavan voters “trickling” to the polls

With seven hours of voting passed turnout in Cavan town remains low, but there is still a steady trickle at St Clare's Polling station. Ten St Clare's booths have been opened since 7am, with turnout ranging between 10% and 20%.

For the most part it has been quiet up to 2pm with polling booth staff saying they anticipate a large surge in turnout after 5pm. Crossing out names, checking polling cards and punching papers to mark the time those officiating in the polling stations are underwhelmed by the turnout.

“It is markedly different from the last referendum,” one of the invigilator says as they hand over the presidential ballot paper to a voter, “The only unusual occurrence was one man who came in and said he did not want the presidential ballot, only the blasphemy referendum paper.”

Similar to the the experience in Arva and Ballinagh there was little appetite for the early morning start: “We only had one person in before 8am,” a staff member at Booth 8 said “it has been steady since then, I imagine a lot of people will come in after work.”

Engagement by the voters has been mixed. One invigilator said they were asked what the blasphemy referendum was about.

Figures from the booths vary to reflect the profile of the electorate. Booth 9 has a large number of elderly Cavan residents on the list and had hit the 20% mark by 1:30pm, this contrasted with Booth 10 where only 12% had cast their votes. The average for the 10 boxes was exemplified by Booth 1 where 78 of the 556 listed had voted representing just over 14% of a turnout.