Referendum county blog

Townhall at the centre of Cavan Town gave a good indication of turnout for the county. The two booths had exceed the halfway point as the day was coming to a close.

The turnout Booth 1 was at 56% turnout with just a half an hour of voting time left.

This came thanks to an even flow of voters throughout the day, with the usual spikes between 1 and 2 and again between 5 and 7.

 

At the polls was closing the polling staff said that “quite a lot of seniors” had turned out to vote, suggesting that “the turnout will surpass the marriage equality referendum”.

The second booth had a similar level of footfall. For them the figure was 52%, but they were surprised by the “exceptional amount of young people voting”.

Ounting of the votes started at 9:00am in Cavan Leisure Centre, with the first box tipped out at 9:07am.

The picture emerging from the Leisure Centre reflects the national trend. With just 50 minutes of counting gone only Cavan boxes have been opened.

Almost 6,000 votes have been tallied in that time. Overall the Yes side have the advantage with 59.45% of the votes, to the No’s 40.55%.

 

This translates to 3,501 to 2,388. The spread of the votes is not uniform in the areas. A Cooethill box returned 111 Yes to 65 No, a Bailieboro  has the advantage to No by 75 votes to 70 while a Belturbet box had a 50/50 spread on the votes cast.

 

Initially tallying was a little more chaotic as a general election count, however Sinn Féin have started to co-ordinate the compiling of numbers and a more cohesive image is forming.