‘Our silly aul’ pencils’: Election Administration in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

Irish election administration has been almost entirely ignored by scholars of electoral laws. The absence of an academic literature on election administration in Ireland is unsurprising however, since unlike the US, it has rarely featured as a high-level political issue. For example, on 15 December 1994, the government established a commitment to establish an all-party committee of the Oireachtas to review the constitution. The Committee considered the electoral system at length and concluded that ‘the present PR-STV system has had popular support and should not be changed without careful advanced assessment of the possible effects’ (Constitution Review Group, 1996: 60). However, like many debates surrounding electoral laws the constitution during the life of the Irish Republic, no consideration was given to election administration.