A study by An Coimisiún Toghcháin has shown that 94% of participants agree that Irish elections are conducted in accordance with the law.
88% agree that elections are well managed and that election officials are fair, and 96% of voters agreed that they are confident that their ballot papers were secret once they put them in the ballot box.
An Coimisiún Toghcháin, Ireland's independent electoral commission and the National Election and Democracy Study (NEDS) Management Board have published the results of a study based on the results of the General Election 2024.
The NEDS study is carried out after each electoral event to build up a long term data set on Ireland’s democracy.
The study of just under 1,500 randomly selected respondents also suggests that Irish voters are knowledgeable about aspects of the voting and democratic process.
90% of respondents understood that every one of their preferences has the potential to count. 76% knew that they did not need to express a preference for each candidate on the ballot paper.
However, 51% mistakenly thought they needed their polling card to vote and 36% agreed that information about voting procedures is not widely available.
Other findings are that 27% of first-time voters cited the influence of their friends, family, school or work as key to encouraging them to get on the electoral register.
24% were prompted by social media, newspaper, TV or radio ads, which were a focus for An Coimisiún Toghcháin during the election campaign.
The highest reasons given by registered people for not voting on 29 November, were being away on the day (30%), work commitments (27%) and 12% pointed to disinterest in politics.
73% of respondents agreed with Ireland having a system of automatic voter registration and 98% of those surveyed found the voting experience to be very easy or quite easy.
A key priority for An Coimisiún Toghcháin is to understand the reasons why people do not vote so the sample includes 324 non-voters.
Welcoming this data, Art O’Leary, Chief Executive of An Coimisiún Toghcháin said: "The data published today again highlights the value of An Coimisiún Toghcháin’s National Election and Democracy Study to learn more about the experience and perspectives of current and potential voters as well as contributing to academic scholarship about democracy and elections.
"We simply have to understand more about who non-voters are and why they are staying away from the polls, and so this data will feed into other research projects we are advancing through our broader research programme and our public campaigns and engagement."
