As part of a series on the European and local elections, Dr Shane Murphy examines how narratives about voter fraud evolved, often with no regard to rules about voter eligibility.
A recent article by Ciaran O’Connor, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, looked at how the Far Right in Ireland were laying the foundations for a “Stop the Steal” movement, similar to what was seen in America in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential Election. The article contextualises incidents of voter fraud in Irish elections, which are incredibly rare. It also highlights a wide array of narratives that were being rolled out in advance of the June elections, to pre-emptively offer excuses, should the elections not go positively for far-right figures. By most accounts, nationalists had a good day with five anti-immigration candidates being elected to local councils. However, this didn’t stop a flood of allegations of election interference both during and after the elections.
The Run Up
Misinformation and scaremongering about migrants’ voting in local elections began well before these elections took place. For the record, anyone over 18 years of age who is ordinarily resident in the State is entitled to register to vote in local elections. In August 2023, Gript wrote an article about the Irish State releasing election guides in 16 European languages (excluding English and Irish). The article described the publication of a Ukrainian version of the document as a “self serving power-grab” by the government, due to the large numbers of Ukrainian migrants who they had recently “parachuted” into the country. This was followed three days later with a video titled The Irish Government is Acting Like Citizenship Doesn’t Matter in which Gript journalist Ben Scallan raised concerns about “imported voters” whose votes he described as “uninformed, almost by definition”, arguing that it’s “logical” and “common sense” to assume a migrant will naturally feel indebted to the government for all they have given them. Efforts by the government to encourage non-Irish residents to participate in local elections was described by Scallan as a “cynical and Machiavellian ploy by the government to retain power under the guise of being inclusive” and “a fundamentally undemocratic sleight of hand”. The video has been viewed over 23k times since it was uploaded nine months ago.
More recently, in a column published on Gript in May 2024, independent journalist and researcher Eoin Lenihan quotes his neighbour’s reaction to learning migrants can run for local office in Ireland, saying: “They should be thankful for what Irish people have given them and stay out of politics”. The piece goes on to generate concerns about ethnic bloc-voting, by comparing the number of refugees in certain constituencies to the numbers of votes required to elect candidates in those same constituencies, before alleging that “international leftists have long encouraged mass migration as a potential pathway to expanded voter bases”.
A column by the same author published just three days before the election titled The Role of the Immigrant Council in Ensuring Non-Citizens Can Vote in Local Elections revisited these concerns about ethnic voting blocs. It went into great detail describing the work done by the Immigrant Council of Ireland in facilitating migrants’ participation in local politics. The piece concludes by warning that “the majority of the native Irish have no idea that any of this is happening” and inaccurately claiming “there has been no national debate on whether non-citizens should, in fact, have the right to vote in local elections”. The issue, which passed with 77.38% of the vote, was part of the referendum on the 20th Amendment to the Constitution.
Conspiracies about election interference ramped up significantly in the days leading up to the election. As previously covered in this series, the Irish Inquiry’s Stephen Kerr described migrant candidates running in elections as “vote fixing”, and chastised opponents in his constituency for “strategically” placing election posters outside migrant accommodation, and deliberately trying to “court” migrant votes. The Irish Inquiry also made allegations relating to a broader “gerrymandering” effort in which government parties manipulated constituencies by bringing in migrants in an effort to retain power. Around the same time, TV presenter and chef Paul Treyvaud, who has an X following of 23.6k, raised concerns about unnamed candidates who are “rigging their votes”. He described 600 Ukrainians being added to the register in one day as “absolute voting corruption and a national scandal” before asking “How was there no referendum for this?”. Treyvaud alleged that “genuine” candidates will be unable to compete with these numbers and called for a “full investigation”.
Election Day
Election Day itself saw a number of anti-immigration figures documenting acts of election interference that were supposedly taking place.The Irish Inquiry uploaded a video titled Electoral interference in full flow in Breaffy Co. Mayo, in which Stephen Kerr relayed two pieces of information he received from eyewitnesses. The first reported seeing “a dozen and a half African people, from Breaffy House no doubt” in their polling station, while the second relayed a story about an African man who was told he was not allowed to vote as he had not registered in time, and had to be removed by the Gardaí after becoming irate. Although neither of these incidents are describing any form of electoral interference, Kerr warned that these kinds of things are happening all over the country. He called for Gardaí to be stationed in polling centres. As the video continued, Kerr showed a list of 138 non-Irish residents who were registered in Breaffy. Although the names are blacked out, Kerr stated “they are mostly, I’d imagine, African and Ukrainian names, they look like to me”. He said that while he hadn’t been canvassing in Breaffy, he was aware of other candidates who had, heavily implying these rival candidates were courting migrant votes and that they were wrong to do so. The video concluded with a claim that refugees were being taxied to polling stations, and that taxies are “going back and forth all day”.
Around the same time, Andy Quirke promoted a similar claim. Quirke is a comedian best known for portraying a character in Damo and Ivor in the 2010s. He has since become a prominent figure in Irish conspiratorial circles. He shared an image purporting to show refugees being bussed to polling stations, accompanied by a message accusing the “corrupt government” of transporting “illegals” to vote for them. This message was sent in response to Ben Gilroy, head of Liberty Republic, who shared a post claiming that “economic migrants” who had entered the country “illegally” were voting in the elections. The post was widely shared, viewed almost 30K times, and received multiple comments from followers calling for the government to be sued, saying that the election results were invalidated, and suggesting NGOs were using taxpayer money to undermine Irish elections.
The Irish Channel – Allegation of Vote Rigging
The day after the election, an article was published on conservative click-bait site The Irish Channel titled Allegations of Vote Rigging in Irish Local Elections: A Deep Dive. The article has been shared almost 350 times on X in a tweet that has over 20k views. Based on accounts provided by anonymous eyewitnesses, the article alleges that transport was arranged for migrants and non-Irish residents to get to polling stations. This is of course not illegal. The piece itself even states “While it is not illegal to provide transportation to voters, the ethical implications are significant, particularly if it involves coercion or undue influence.” Although no attempt is made to prove that any coercion or undue influence occurred, the article warns that if coercion or undue evidence had occurred, it would be detrimental to democracy, citing a number of academics and organizations, including DCU’s Dr Eoin O’Malley, Transparency International Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin’s Dr Claire MacNamara. The piece also shares a quote from Fine Gael denying any involvement in an organized effort to manipulate votes, and claims that Fine Gael have launched an internal investigation to ensure all campaigning was in line with legal and ethical standards. The piece noticeably does not describe any wrongdoing. The malfeasance discussed is contingent on hypotheticals, which although certainly implied to have taken place, the article does not even attempt to prove occurred. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of political trust and election integrity, and how important these are for future elections and the continuation of democracy.
Four days later, TheJournal’s Shane Raymond thoroughly debunked the article’s claims. Most interesting, was the revelation that quotes attributed to Fine Gael, Transparency International Ireland and Eoin O’Malley were entirely fabricated, and that Dr Claire McNamara did not appear to exist. The original article published by The Irish Channel has since been removed from their homepage, but can still be accessed via their X/Twitter account. Transparency International Ireland have since released a statement, clarifying “TI Ireland has not been presented with any evidence of electoral fraud in relation to the local or European Parliament elections and has not made the statements attributed to it on the website in question.”
An interesting development in this story is The Irish Channel’s decision to rebut TheJournal’s debunking in an article titled Examining the Journal’s Attack on the Integrity of Irish Channel Reporting. The piece is largely a re-hash of their original argument with large blocks of text repeated verbatim. No new supporting evidence is offered, and no responses are made to the allegations of falsifying statements and inventing academics. However, TheJournal are called out for their “selective use of evidence”, for ignoring the testimonies of the “ordinary citizens” whose testimonies were the foundation for the piece (a feat that would be difficult, given that these sources were anonymous), and instead reaching out to the organization and individuals directly quoted in the original piece (with the exception of Dr. Claire McNamara, who Trinity College Dublin confirmed was not a political science lecturer in their institution). The rebuttal goes on to accuse TheJournal of “aligning closely with the established political power, in this case Fine Gael”, and “failing in its duty to scrutinise power impartially”, which The Irish Channel ironically argued is undermining public trust in the media.
Shifting Goalposts for “Election Interference”
For all the concern over vote-rigging and voter fraud, very few of the allegations being promoted by anti-immigration figures involved any actual wrong-doing. In the absence of concrete evidence of law-breaking, commentators were forced to dramatically expand the definition of “election interference” to include behaviours that are a normal part of the campaigning process – encouraging voter registration, attempting to maximise your voter base, facilitating access to polling stations.
In some cases, it was clear that non-Irish residents voting – a right that was cemented into the constitution by popular vote over 20 years ago – was in itself evidence of voter fraud, and ultimately discredited any election outcomes. The reasons for this were varied. In the video quoted at the beginning of this article, Gript’s Ben Scallan says that refugees are incapable of making up their own minds or seeking out information during elections, suggesting they would be “incredibly easy to manipulate, because they wouldn’t know any better than what the last political candidate had told them”. Leaving aside how obviously condescending this comment is, it also seems to imply that native voters’ right to vote is earned, as they are innately well informed, and purely motivated by policies and issues – an idea that does not gel with the reality of Irish elections, in which simply meeting a candidate face to face or seeing that they are an incumbent is enough to persuade some voters, and in which ideologically inconsistent transfers are incredibly common.
Another reason given was that refugees and asylum seekers will naturally vote for those in power, either out of gratitude for their “their brand new modular homes and luxurious hotel rooms” or because they are being bribed with “free money, food, phone, housing, transport, medical cards, and passports. All on the taxpayers money”. Again, this seems incredibly doubtful, in light of the stories we are constantly hearing about the conditions in which refugee and asylum seekers are forced to live, tents and sleeping bags being given out in place of accommodation, and the government’s recent decision to lower the benefits refugees asylum seekers receive.
The narrative that this was a “power grab” by the government to retain power, is another one which quickly falls apart under scrutiny. Local elections do not determine the makeup of the government, and only Irish citizens are entitled to vote in general elections. In fact, Ireland has one of the weakest systems of local government in Europe. That being the case, it’s probably safe to assume that the false narratives about interference, and the outrage they generate, should be understood as another method through which the Irish extremists can sow distrust and further undermine the integrity of democratic institutions. As Ciaran O’Connor concisely put it “The ultimate goal of these tactics is to introduce doubt and sow discord so that if the election results do not align with the desires of certain groups, they may claim the vote was rigged. This approach serves to threaten the electoral process, create a cycle of distrust and undermine the mandate of those who were victorious”.