VOTERS SPOILED FEWER ballots in these local and European elections compared to the same races in 2019, even though more people voted overall.

The Electoral Commission has confirmed that its provisional figures show there were 77,464 invalid or spoiled votes in the ballot boxes this time around.

In the same elections in 2019, 108,488 votes were declared invalid.

It marks a reduction of 31,024 spoiled votes, or 29%, despite a higher total turnout.

The Commission’s Head of Electoral Operations Tim Carey has said that previous observations and feedback revealed that “voting may be simple but getting it wrong is easy”.

He said the Commission is “delighted” there were fewer spoiled ballots this time and that “that people whose votes may otherwise not have counted have had their voices heard”.

The Commission had ran an education drive ahead of the elections that sought to inform people about how to correct complete a ballot, including a ‘How to Vote’ website page that was visited 40,000 times.

“However, Commission staff who observed many of the counts reported that the vast majority of votes that were declared invalid on 7 June were clearly cast by people who had wanted their vote to count. So there is more work to do,” Carey said.

In the 2019 local elections, 1.91% of votes cast were deemed spoiled (34,618).

In the 2024 local elections, provisional figures show this dropped to 1.2% spoiled votes (22,468) -  a reduction of 12,150 compared to five years ago.

Dublin City saw a reduction of invalid ballots from 3.07% in 2019 to 1.83%.

Wicklow fell from 2.12% to 1.01%, Cork City from 2.35% to 1.35% and Westmeath from 1.90% to 1.04%.

In the 2019 European elections, 4.22% of votes cast were spoiled (73,870).

This fell to 3.06% (54,996) in the 2024 European elections– a reduction of 18,874 from 2019.