Galway West voters urged to get out and do their duty in Bye-Election!
Voters in Galway West have been urged to exercise their franchise and cast their vote in the constituency’s Bye-Election this Friday (May 22).
A total of 103,479 people are eligible to vote to determine who will take the Dáil seat that was vacated following Catherine Connolly’s election as President of Ireland last November.
Art O’Leary, Chief Executive of An Coimisiún Toghcháin, said only those who cast a vote will determine who represents Galway West in Dáil Éireann.
“Your vote is your voice. If you don’t vote, then you allow somebody else to speak for you. You will never allow that to happen in any other area of your life. You’d never let anyone choose what music to listen to, what clothes to wear, or what food you eat in a restaurant.
“Why would you allow other people to make a choice in relation to this fundamental of issues, which is the selection of someone to represent you in Dáil Éireann? That’s why it’s important,” he said.
The electoral commission focuses on voters, not candidates but in a Tribune interview Mr O'Leary said opinion polls suggest it's a close race and that "every vote will count."
“Over the years I’ve walked out of many count centres and met candidates who lost out by one, two, three, four or five votes. For people who say ‘my single vote couldn’t make a difference’, because of our electoral system it absolutely does. If a small number of people shrug their shoulders on the day and decide not to vote, that could be the difference between winning and losing for one of the candidates,” he said.
Mr O’Leary said misinformation and disinformation haven’t been a feature of the Galway West Bye-Election but the Electoral Commission remained vigilant, and urged voters to access information from reliable sources.
"Electoral integrity is very much in our inbox – people have to have confidence in the process so they can trust the result. Anything that affects that confidence or trust is something we worry about,” he said.
Disinformation is the practice of purposely creating or distributing information that you know to be false, and misinformation is where people spread mistruths perhaps believing them to be true, and not to intentionally mislead people.
Mr O’Leary said research suggests over 90% of Irish people believe elections are run fairly and the people in charge of elections do a good job but there was no room for complacency due to “democratic backsliding” evident in other parts of the World.
Media and digital literacy is the long-term answer to the problems of deep fake videos, misinformation and disinformation during elections but in the meantime, “we have to help people identify trusted sources of information”, he said.
“There’s one day of the year where you question everything you see and read and hear and that day is April Fools Day. So during an election campaign you should treat every day like April fool’s Day – ask yourself where is this information coming from, who benefits from it and is there somewhere I can go to check it out?” Mr O'Leary added.