The Irish Presidential Election and the “Art” of the Spoiled Vote: A Gallery

By Daniel Rankin

Catherine Connolly won the Irish Presidential Election last Friday, becoming the tenth in such office, and the third woman in the role. Like her predecessor, the 84-year-old Michael D. Higgins – who is outgoing on the 11th November – she is an independent, was Mayor of Galway, and has a reputation for progressive, left-wing political positions.

Connolly won the election in a much-expected landslide, with 914,143 (63%), much ahead of Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys’ 424,987 (29%) [1]. The election was effectively a two-horse race, though it included Fianna Fáil’s candidate Jim Gavin, who withdrew from the race but remained on the ballot.

A two-horse race?

Much has been made of this election’s turnout; it was 46%, which is 2 percentage points above Higgins’ re-election in 2018, but the lowest ever for any presidential transition. However, this is even more faceted than at first glance.

Following Humphreys, Gavin’s untidy withdrawal still managed to take 7% of the vote. The three official candidates – as no write-ins of any sort are permitted – encompassed 1,442,698 votes of the electorate encompassing 3,614,450 people. That, you might notice, is clearly lower than 46%; it is about 40%, meaning there is a stark gap. Just what were those 213,000 others on the turnout?

The spoiled vote

12.9% of all votes were invalid, in most instances intentionally spoiled. That is by far an unprecedented figure in Irish history, with approximately only 1% spoiled in the last two septennial elections [2].

The campaign to “spoil the vote” was spread on Twitter (X), Facebook and other platforms particularly by right-wing figures, many expressing dismay at the failure to include religious conservative Maria Steen on the ballot. Other protest “votes” wrote in emphasis of migrant crime – especially concerning the rape of a 10-year-old girl in Dublin by an African immigrant last Monday in Dublin. Various ballot papers included the phrase “she was only 10” in protest of the perceived failure of the government concerning immigration.

Various spoiled ballot papers, ranging from “not my president” and calling on the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to resign, to far-right and xenophobic slogans, outnumbered all but Connolly in quantity at many stations.

The following are some instances shared on Twitter of spoiled votes, most of which follow the above pattern:

The Irish President is of course more of a ceremonial role than the Taoiseach, and in turn these spoiled votes have ceremonially rejected the very workings of the electoral process. Their ceremony is anything from devil horns on Catherine Connolly, jokes and cartoon characters, to “Ireland for the Irish”, anti-Muslim phrases and even swastikas.

Spoiling one’s vote can be an art; a symbol of the futility one sees in voting in general. It can also be a vehicle of protest, resentment, and hate.

References

[1] Presidential Election, (2025). “Election Results 2025”. presidentialelection.ie. https://www.presidentialelection.ie/index.html

[2] Burns, S., (2025). “Spoiled ballots hit unprecedented level as voters express anger at choice of candidates”. The Irish Times, 25 Oct 2025. https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/10/25/spoiled-presidential-votes-could-reach-unprecedented-levels-early-tallies-indicate/