Early tallies suggest a huge number of spoiled votes have been cast nationwide. In some boxes, more than 20% of votes have been spoiled.
In most recent elections, spoiled or invalid votes have made up less than 2% of all ballots.
So, what has driven the number of spoiled votes this time around?
With just two candidates in the running leading up to voting day, many people told pollsters and journalists that neither of the available candidates represented their views.
In both 2011 and 2018 voters had the choice of more than six presidential candidates. This time around, people spoke of feeling unrepresented, disenfranchised, disaffected, and frustrated.
The pattern of spoiled votes is evident from available tallies nationwide, but particularly in parts of Dublin. By 10.30am, tallies from the Dublin city count centre in the RDS had the number of spoiled votes surpassing the number for Heather Humphreys.
Some voters wrote messages about anti-immigration on their ballots, others wrote about crime, while others still simply wrote 'Maria Steen'.
Ms Steen unsuccessfully attempted to get into the race prior to the closure of nominations. She gathered 18 of the 20 Oireachtas members' signatures needed to get onto the ballot. Her efforts were backed by several high profile politicians and individuals, including businessman Declan Ganley.
After nominations closed without Ms Steen on the list of candidates, Mr Ganley joined a campaign to encourage voters to spoil their votes.
The 'Spoil The Vote' campaign was "founded in response to growing public concern about the lack of genuine choice in the forthcoming presidential election".
Its website noted that while the government parties each had candidates on the ballot "only one independent, left-leaning candidate - Catherine Connolly - has been permitted onto the ballot, leaving no centrist or centre-right candidate to represent a significant portion of the electorate".
While many voters who chose to spoil their vote may have been unaware of the campaign, the group's campaign narratives were pushed through the large social media accounts and online presences of key individuals involved.
They trickled into various influential online discussions, not to mention localised WhatsApp groups.
So, how did it operate?
The group held a campaign launch in recent weeks at which it listed eight 'campaign leaders'. Importantly, each has either a large following online, or is seen as influential in conservative, anti-establishment, anti-immigration, or right-wing circles.
Elaine Mullally
A businesswoman from Co Laois, Ms Mullally was a founding member of Independent Ireland but left the party in July 2024 saying it no longer aligned with her "values and principles". She ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate in last year's general election.
Ms Mullally, who spoke publicly on behalf of the campaign, positioned 'Spoil The Vote' as a protest against what she sees as a lack of real political choice.
On social media she criticised both main presidential contenders as "not representing ordinary people", writing that one "represents everything that is wrong in this country", while the other is "woke, backed by all left-leaning parties and Sinn Féin".
Her posts online often focus on themes of gender, free speech and government accountability, echoing the anti-establishment tone that runs through the campaign.
Ms Mullally previously helped to launch the Irish branch of Children's Health Defense — an organisation founded by US Secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that has campaigned against vaccination and other public health programmes.
Eddie Hobbs
Mr Hobbs was a prominent commentator and presenter on RTÉ throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, best known for his consumer-finance series and investment analysis programmes.
He entered politics in 2015, co-founding the now-defunct Renua Party alongside Lucinda Creighton. He resigned as president of the party following the 2016 general election when they failed to get any candidates elected.
A vocal critic of Ireland's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Hobbs now presents a podcast and YouTube show where recent episodes have focused on themes of media trust, political corruption and perceived threats to free speech.
At least five of his fellow 'Spoil The Vote' 'campaign leaders' have appeared on his channels. Mr Hobbs described the campaign as "an act of defiance and rebuke to this Government".
Paul Treyvaud
Chef and restaurateur Paul Treyvaud runs a family restaurant in Killarney, Co Kerry. He has presented cooking and travel programmes on television and on his YouTube channel.
Mr Treyvaud became a central figure in opposition to Covid-19 restrictions during the pandemic, frequently criticising government policy and lockdown measures that impacted hospitality.
On his website, he promotes himself as creating content "for people that are sick and tired of the PC muppets out there".
Since the pandemic, he has used his online platforms to question government policy and media narratives on issues ranging from public health to the impact of immigration on tourism, aligning himself with the anti-establishment sentiment underpinning Spoil The Vote campaign.
Aidan Joyce
Aidan Joyce is a technology strategist, according to the campaign's website. His name appears as the account handle for 'Spoil the Vote Campaign HQ' on X, the group's core online hub, where much of the campaign's messaging and coordination has been posted.
He posted prolifically in support of presidential hopeful Maria Steen before she was ultimately unsuccessful in securing a nomination for the presidential race.
Prior to the election campaign, his posts on social media focused often on subjects like gender and immigration.
Declan Ganley
Businessman Declan Ganley is no stranger to political movements, having previously launched the Libertas Party in 2008 to campaign for a 'No' vote during the first Lisbon Treaty referendum.
He subsequently contested a seat in the 2009 European elections in the Ireland North West constituency but failed to get elected, after running a campaign which questioned the direction of the European Union.
He has had business interests in telecommunications, aluminum and forestry across Latvia, Cyprus, Albania, Russia and the United States.
In more recent years he campaigned against the referendum on changing abortion laws in 2018. Among proposals he suggested was writing "One, Maria Steen" on the ballot paper.
"There's an option to register a protest vote, to register your dissatisfaction with what we see as the rigging of the ballot that has taken place, and that is to cast a spoiled vote," he said.
Nick Delehanty
Former solicitor Nick Delehanty tried to run as an independent candidate for the presidential election but failed to get his name on the ballot through nominations from local councils or Oireachtas members.
When he launched his campaign in May, he said he was running because "Ireland lacks direction".
The 35-year-old Tipperary man, who now runs a dog daycare business, has built up a significant following on X, where he posts videos critical of public spending on international protection accommodation, as well as the running of the system in general, which he calls the "asylum scam".
At his campaign launch, he accused the government of "making millionaires out of some people who should not be getting Government contracts in the first place."
He also said, while he does believe in having a multiethnic society, he doesn't believe in multiculturalism. "There should be a culture most people sign up to in a country, that everybody agrees upon, and that's what we're about," he said.
Mr Delahanty also ran for the local and general election in 2024 in Dublin Bay South, securing 1,500 first preference votes before being eliminated after the sixth count. His campaign posters with the message 'Make Crime Illegal' drew a significant amount of attention.
"Spoiling your vote is a perfectly legitimate democratic act to be used in drastic situations like this," he told his online followers.
Ivor Cummins
Ivor Cummins is a former biochemical engineer.
More than 10 years ago he began writing about chronic health conditions like cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, and advocating for low-carbohydrate diets to combat them. He has built a large online following, with over 262,000 subscribers on YouTube.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Cummins shifted his attention to lockdown scepticism and vaccine resistance. His videos, which drew millions of views online, positioned him as an online critic of public health consensus views, and drew criticism from expert scientists who said he was deeply misinformed on various matters related to epidemiology and immunology.
He argued in early 2020 that Covid-19 herd immunity had already been achieved, and around the same time predicted that while cases of Covid-19 cases would rise, deaths and ICU visits would "collapse".
Describing the election as "rigged", Mr Cummins encouraged people to spoil their vote to "send a message to our globalist-owned puppeticians that we do not agree, we do not comply".
Michael McCarthy
With almost 150,000 followers on X and a sizeable following on Instagram, Michael McCarthy is a content creator who regularly makes videos critical of immigration and the international protection system.
He has posted videos under the account name he uses online, 'Think About This', supporting ethnonationalism – the idea that a nation and nationality is defined by a single ethnicity. In online video posts, he often adds his own commentary while pausing footage or speeches from others.
On 30 September, two weeks before appearing publicly at the 'Spoil The Vote' launch, Mr McCarthy added his own commentary to a speech by UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
Speaking at a Labour Party event, Ms Mahmood, who was born in Birmingham to Pakistani parents, said "ethnonationalism struggles to accept that someone who looks like me, or has a face like mine, can truly be English or British".
Commenting, Mr McCarthy added, "because you're not".
In many videos, he raises questions about the State's approach to migration, before offering his own potential answers. After asking why the government supports immigration, he said it could be to "push globalisation", "blur national borders and weaken national identity".
Another explanation, he posited, was that the government might be trying to "erode national unity and create civil unrest, which allows for great control".
