Ireland Votes May 2018

On the 25th of May 2018 the people of Ireland voted in a referendum on whether or not to accept the 36th amendment to their constitution. Read More ...

The Amendment

The proposed amendment was to replace Article 40.3.3 with the following text Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy.

Outcome

National total results (sourced from WikiPedia).
  # votes % votes
Yes 1,429,981 66.40%
No 723,632 33.60%
Valid votes 2,153,613 99.72%
Invalid or blank votes 6,042 0.28%
Total votes & Turnout 2,159,655 64.13%
Registered voters 3,367,556  

The amendment was ratified approximately two to one with almost one third of voters turning out to vote.

The Campaign

On 9 March 2018, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy established the statutory Referendum Commission to oversee the referendum campaign, with High Court judge Isobel Kennedy as Chair.

Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had allowed their TDs a free vote on the issue in the Dáil. However, although Fine Gael cannot adopt an official party position because members have been afforded a freedom of conscience vote on issues to do with the referendum, on 21 April Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar launched a Fine Gael 'Vote Yes' campaign for Yes-supporting party members, along with party colleagues, including Minister for Health Simon Harris and Fine Gael referendum coordinator, Josepha Madigan.

Election Posters in Dublin (from WikiPedia)
Abortion Referendum Campaign Posters in Dublin, May 2018. Image from Wikipedia.

On 8 May 2018, due to controversy over the origin, number, content and targeting of adverts on social media, Facebook announced that it would block advertisements placed by foreign entities, most of whom are in the United States, and limit them to adverts placed by Irish organisations. On 9 May, Google announced that it was blocking all adverts on the referendum from its advertising platform and YouTube, citing concerns around the integrity of elections.

On 9 May, the fundraising web pages of Together for Yes, Amnesty Ireland and Termination for Medical Reasons were subjected to a denial-of-service attack.

On 20 May, the parents of Savita Halappanavar called for a Yes vote, her father saying I hope the people of Ireland will vote yes for abortion, for the ladies of Ireland and the people of Ireland. My daughter, she lost her life because of this abortion law, because of the diagnosis, and she could not have an abortion. She died. After the landslide Yes vote, Halappanavar's father thanked the people of Ireland.

On 23 May, CNN reported that American-based anti-abortion groups, such as Let Them Live, have flown to Ireland in order to sway voters to vote No to the amendment. They entered into Ireland by lying to Irish border control about their reason for coming to Ireland, claiming they were only in Ireland to document the event and nothing more, therefore breaking Irish law by their activities—they did not obtain a Volunteer Visa, required to do voluntary work.

Detailed Results

Result Map
Referendum result by constituency, green for yes, red for no. Image from Wikipedia.

While the final result of an Irish Referendum is determined by what Americans would refer to as the popular vote, Irish voters are divided into constituencies, and each constituency counts and publishes their own results. The final national result is simply the sum of all the constituency results.

Detailed results by constituency (sourced from referendum.ie).
Constituency Electorate Total Poll % Turnout Invalid Ballot Papers Valid Poll Votes in Favour Votes Against % in Favour % Against
Carlow-Kilkenny 112,704 69,860 61.99 231 69,629 44,211 25,418 63.50 36.50
Cavan-Monaghan 91,602 58,067 63.39 163 57,904 32,115 25,789 55.46 44.54
Clare 83,225 53,576 64.37 169 53,407 34,328 19,079 64.28 35.72
Cork East 85,643 54,639 63.80 148 54,491 34,941 19,550 64.12 35.88
Cork North-Central 84,412 52,713 62.45 166 52,547 33,639 18,908 64.02 35.98
Cork North-West 68,830 45,379 65.93 131 45,248 27,194 18,054 60.10 39.90
Cork South-Central 87,524 58,407 66.73 198 58,209 40,071 18,138 68.84 31.16
Cork South-West 60,356 40,648 67.35 114 40,534 26,147 14,387 64.51 35.49
Donegal 118,901 67,839 57.06 189 67,650 32,559 35,091 48.13 51.87
Dublin Bay North 108,209 77,481 71.60 154 77,327 57,754 19,573 74.69 25.31
Dublin Bay South 78,892 43,343 54.94 126 43,217 33,919 9,298 78.49 21.51
Dublin Central 48,002 24,732 51.52 79 24,653 18,863 5,790 76.51 23.49
Dublin Fingal 95,926 67,519 70.39 156 67,363 51,840 15,523 76.96 23.04
Dublin Mid-West 71,558 48,157 67.30 127 48,030 35,192 12,838 73.27 26.73
Dublin North-West 62,270 39,079 62.76 113 38,966 28,477 10,489 73.08 26.92
Dublin Rathdown 64,887 45,491 70.11 117 45,374 34,529 10,845 76.10 23.90
Dublin South-Central 76,914 45,843 59.60 112 45,731 34,201 11,530 74.79 25.21
Dublin South-West 106,588 73,096 68.58 153 72,943 54,642 18,301 74.91 25.09
Dublin West 67,138 45,502 67.77 113 45,389 33,595 11,794 74.02 25.98
Dun Laoghaire 95,372 65,348 68.52 152 65,196 50,243 14,953 77.06 22.94
Galway East 69,631 44,192 63.47 121 44,071 26,525 17,546 60.19 39.81
Galway West 107,726 64,529 59.90 201 64,328 42,422 21,906 65.95 34.05
Kerry 111,108 69,345 62.41 209 69,136 40,285 28,851 58.27 41.73
Kildare North 85,587 54,571 63.76 114 54,457 40,058 14,399 73.56 26.44
Kildare South 63,190 38,758 61.34 112 38,646 27,307 11,339 70.66 29.34
Laois 63,860 39,602 62.01 106 39,496 24,232 15,264 61.35 38.65
Limerick City 77,836 48,263 62.01 153 48,110 32,169 15,941 66.87 33.13
Limerick County 67,592 42,214 62.45 122 42,092 24,448 17,644 58.08 41.92
Longford-Westmeath 89,665 53,172 59.30 183 52,989 30,876 22,113 58.27 41.73
Louth 106,184 69,968 65.89 206 69,762 46,429 23,333 66.55 33.45
Mayo 91,377 56,735 62.09 161 56,574 32,287 24,287 57.07 42.93
Meath East 67,755 44,456 65.61 118 44,338 30,686 13,652 69.21 30.79
Meath West 65,651 41,319 62.94 126 41,193 26,343 14,850 63.95 36.05
Offaly 66,120 42,788 64.71 99 42,689 24,781 17,908 58.05 41.95
Roscommon-Galway 63,158 41,497 65.70 111 41,386 23,677 17,709 57.21 42.79
Sligo-Leitrim 95,954 58,604 61.08 189 58,415 34,685 23,730 59.38 40.62
Tipperary 113,546 72,485 63.84 238 72,247 42,731 29,516 59.15 40.85
Waterford 83,107 53,435 64.30 123 53,312 37,016 16,296 69.43 30.57
Wexford 110,494 73,220 66.27 216 73,004 49,935 23,069 68.40 31.60
Wicklow 99,062 73,783 74.48 223 73,560 54,629 18,931 74.26 25.74
Total 3,367,556 2,159,655 64.13 6,042 2,153,613 1,429,981 723,632 66.40 33.60