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Presiding Officer Sinead Magee and Conor O'Higgins wait for voters at Shankill. Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland
Referendum

Polling stations quiet with low turnout so far

As they head to the booths, voters have been telling us how turnout figures are looking pretty dismal…

TURNOUT HAS BEEN low so far today in the vote to ratify or reject the Fiscal Compact.

RTÉ has reported turnout of about 10 to 25 per cent at various polling stations across the country. That figure is below those seen during previous comparable referendums, such as the Lisbon Treaty.

Between a midweek vote and the poor weather, polling has been slow with many people taking to Twitter to highlight the emptiness of the ballot boxes.

Dublin was seeing the lowest numbers with the city centre coming in at about 10 per cent after lunchtime. Things were faring a little better in Dublin West as 17.5 per cent of the electorate had voted by 3pm.

At between 12 and 17.5 per cent, turnout across Galway is lower than in the Lisbon treaty, according to RTÉ’s referendum account on Twitter.

On the northside of Limerick, turnout was on the higher end as of 3pm with votes in from 23 per cent of the electorate.

Polling stations quiet with low turnout so far
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Note: the timestamps are not correct in the tweets in the slideshow above. They have all been taken from Twitter’s feed in the past hour.

However, there is still plenty of time. The country’s three million eligible voters have until 10pm to cast their ballots. The count begins at 9am tomorrow.

See TheJournal.ie’s full coverage of today’s referendum>

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