Slow morning at polling stations
It has been a slow morning at some of Cavan's polling stations. Two of the county's voting locations said that almost an hour had elapsed before the first ballot was cast.
Across the Cavan Monaghan constituency voting takes place in 256 polling booths, with an additional 28 Cavan boxes in the Sligo Leitrim Cavan Donegal constituency. Polling commenced at these station at 7:00am with voters accommodated to cast their ballot up until 10:00pm.
In Arva, where there are 708 registered voters, only seven had placed their papers in the ballot box as the second hour of voting came to an end.
Ballinagh has a larger catchment area. Three boxes accommodate 1,174 members of the electorate. By nine o'clock only 14 people had voted in the presidential election and referendum.
Invigilators spoke of marked difference with the last election: “For the last referendum on the Repeal of the 8th people were queueing from before 7am to vote. For this the first person to vote came in after 8am. It is early yet, but it doesn't seem to have captured the public attention.”
Other factors may be at play in the low early turn out, heavy rains in the region may have deterred tentative voters.
Office Manager at Cavan Court Office, Fiona O'Reilly, says preparations are all in place for the vote, but reminded those wishing to exercise their franchise to comply with the requests of the polling booth staff: “Voters are reminded to bring some ID, for example passport or drivers licence. One in four people will be requested to show their ID.”
On Saturday morning the votes will be counted. The count will start at 9:00am with the votes in the Presidential elections counted first, followed by the totting up of the referendum votes.