Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States, famously said: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
While death and taxes are still sure things, there are two certainties in Irish elections.
Firstly, pundits will predict that "transfers will be crucial". Secondly, somebody will put a miraculous medal into a ballot box along with their vote.
Today, it's quite possible that transfers will not be crucial at all and no matter how many miraculous medals are found among the votes - the polls suggest the result is inevitable.
So, what can we expect when the ballot boxes are opened this morning?
Loose horses
The fact that Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin’s name remained on the ballot paper for yesterday’s election - even though he pulled out of the campaign weeks ago - has drawn comparisons to a loose horse in a Grand National.
We have all seen a horse unseat its jockey and continue in the race. Nobody knows if the loose horse will impede the remaining mounts and affect the result.
When the boxes open today, people will be keeping an eye on votes for the loose horse candidate.
Some Fianna Fáil politicians openly said they would vote for Jim Gavin anyway. It was too difficult to ignore one of their own on the ballot paper.
People are not expected to back him in big enough numbers to have any huge impact on the race for the Áras.
The loose horse candidate needs to secure 12.5% of the vote to ensure Fianna Fáil recoups its expenses - up to a maximum of €250,000. It's extremely unlikely that will happen.
Sticking with horseracing parlance, this election has parallels with the 1967 Aintree Grand National.
Irish racehorse Foinavon - a 100/1 outsider - won that famous race in the most dramatic circumstances.
After most of the horses were involved in "a right pile up" at the 23rd fence, where they either fell, refused to jump or were impeded by others, the outsider took off on its own.
Irish commentator Michael O'Hehir - working for the BBC - delivered the immortal line: "And now with all this mayhem, Foinavon has gone off on his own."
The horse went on to win the race after the pile up at a fence that was named Foinavon Fence years later.
Just weeks ago, some political pundits were suggesting there could be up to six candidates in this presidential race.
We ended up with three names on the ballot paper - one of them a loose horse.
Will today's count realise what the opinion polls have indicated for the last fortnight?
And after all the mayhem, will Independent Catherine Connolly go off on her own to easily win the Áras race?
Success has many fathers
US President John F Kennedy was among those to say: "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan."
We should know by later tonight who will be the tenth President of Ireland.
If it does happen to be Catherine Connolly, watch out for the reaction from the political parties who backed her candidacy. There will undoubtedly by a clamber to claim credit for her victory.
We only have to cast our minds back to the Marriage Equality Referendum in 2015 to be reminded that success has many fathers.
In 2016, on the first anniversary of the referendum some Fine Gael ministers organised a media doorstep at Leinster House to mark the event.
Just as the media was assembling, the Fine Gaelers were photobombed by some Labour TDs.
There was clear tension between Labour and Fine Gael over the perception that some who were late to the LGBT cause were taking credit for the result.
Catherine Connolly has been backed by Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit-Solidarity, the Green Party and some Independent TDs.
A win for her today could well rekindle similar scenes to the referendum a decade ago.
It could also be a watershed moment in Irish politics - the day when a left-wing alliance successfully creates a model to fight the next general election.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald pledged that her party's support for Ms Connolly would be a "game changer". That could happen. But the left alliance has not been completely harmonious.
There were clear divisions within Labour and the Greens over their decisions to back her.
There's a view among some detractors that she is too vociferously opposed to Europe and too far to the left. Will those internal party divisions mend or fester after today?
The blame game
Not many months ago, Taoiseach Mícheál Martin’s name was regularly mentioned as a potential Fianna Fáil candidate for the Presidential Election.
There was a view that he had a great chance of winning, had he let his name go forward.
Now that the election is over, it is likely to be remembered as the beginning of the end for the Fianna Fáil leader.
His personal association with the selection of Jim Gavin as the candidate, followed by the former Dublin football manager’s withdrawal from the campaign, led to Mr Martin issuing an emotional mea culpa at a five-hour parliamentary party meeting.
But the fallout does not end there. The review of the failed Fianna Fáil campaign will be completed in the next three weeks.
Chaired by barrister Ciaran O'Loughlin, it will look at the candidate selection process and the campaign up to Sunday 5 October when Jim Gavin bowed out following an Irish Independent report that he owed a former tenant €3,300.
As the party awaits the review and counts the financial cost of the debacle, the blame game will continue long after today’s count.
If Catherine Connolly is to emerge the winner today, Fine Gael leader Simon Harris will also face uncomfortable questions.
Did the party rush into selecting Heather Humphreys when Mairéad McGuinness took ill and ruled herself out?
Fine Gael has never won a Presidential Election. Did its campaign do enough to win votes outside its core support base?
The party, and to a lesser extent Fianna Fáil, will also have to ask itself if it was the best strategy to advise its councillors against paving the way for more candidates to enter the race.
Would more candidates have helped Ms Humphreys' chances?
Turnout
In 1966, there was a record turnout of 65.3% when incumbent President Eamon de Valera was narrowly re-elected.
Fine Gael nominee Tom O’Higgins was just 10,717 votes behind the Fianna Fáil candidate.
The second highest turnout in a Presidential Election came in 1990 when instead of rocking the cradle, Mary Robinson rocked the system in becoming Ireland’s first female head of state.
The 64.1% turnout 35 years ago was markedly higher than the 2018 election when fewer voters than ever went to the polls.
A turnout of 1,492,338 people - or 43.87% of the electorate - turned out to re-elect Michael D Higgins.
With so few candidates in yesterday's race, it has been suggested that large swathes of the electorate feel the names on the ballot paper did not represent their political views and they did not turn out to vote yesterday. Does this mean a low turnout? Could it dip below 40%?
Election analyst Odran Flynn said: "Theres's a real possibility there will only be one count if the gap between the leading candidate, who is likely to be Catherine Connolly, and the other candidates, Heather Humphreys and Jim Gavin, is such that their combined vote is lower.
"That will mean Catherine Connolly will win automatically after the first count.
"Based on a low turnout, the committed voters were likely to be Catherine Connolly supporters.They were likely more committed to come out and vote.
"The support for Heather Humphreys from non-Fine Gael voters was less likely to turn out.
"If you look at Fianna Fáil people, what did they have to come out for? A lot of them will have stayed away.
"If we do get a lower turnout of not much over 35%, I think that Catherine Connolly could win it on the first count," he said.
Last year’s local elections marked a record low in turnout. The national figure was 49.4%.
Last week’s Irish Times Ipsos/Behaviour & Attitudes opinion poll found that 49% of respondents indicated that they do not "feel represented by any of the candidates".
Voters may stay at home due to the lack of choice. Don’t be surprised if yesterday marks a record low in presidential elections.
Spoilt votes
Some people spoilt their votes yesterday by way of protest. Watch out for the scale of this action when votes are counted today.
Last week, a campaign encouraging people to spoil their vote was launched.
Businessman Declan Ganley was among the members of the 'Spoil the Vote' initiative who pledged to write "1 Maria Steen" on his ballot paper.
She garnered the support of 18 members of the Oireachtas, but she failed to be nominated as she did not reach the required 20 TDs and senators.
Mr Ganley was among those to argue that a cohort of the electorate was not represented on the ballot paper.
Others were critical that the main political parties instructed their councillors to block alternative candidates from entering the race.
Odran Flynn said: "Last week's opinion poll suggested that as many as 6% of voters could spoil their votes.
"With an electorate of roughly 3.5 million people and, if there was turnout of around 1.3 million voters, a rate of 6% of voters spoiling votes would amount to about 78,000 spoilt votes.
"That would seem high. I wonder why anyone goes to the trouble of going to a polling station and going in to spoil their vote.
"There will be an increase in spoilt votes, and it could be double recent elections. It could be about 4% of the votes are spoilt," the analyst said.
Some 4-6% spoilt votes, with a turnout of around 1.3 million, would translate into 52,000 to 78,000 spoilt votes that will have to be sorted today.
They won't make a material difference to the result but will take time to sort from valid ballot papers.
For some voters, the volume of these spoilt votes will have made a statement.
Devon Loch
Finally, let's go back to horse racing.
In the 1956 Aintree Grand National, Devon Loch had successfully jumped all of the fences and was leading the race with just yards to go before collapsing for no apparent reason.
This presidential race has had few runners and a loose horse.
If the opinion polls are to be believed, Catherine Connolly will have to do a Devon Loch today to end up losing this race.
But opinion polls and political pundits have been badly wrong before. We'll know more in the coming hours.
