Recount Ajourned Until Thursday with 5 Vote Difference

The dramatic recount to determine who will get the last Dáil seat in Wicklow has been ajourned until Thursday at 10:00am. The decision was made by Returning Officer Breda Allen late on Sunday night

Fox and Kelly: As little as 5 votes in the difference

following a day of tension in which Labour candidate Nicky Kelly and Independent Mildred Fox waited to see which would represent Wicklow.

Sunday's day of recounting did little to clarify matters that, by some accounts, left the margin between the last two contenders as close as 5 votes. However there is still all to play for, as up to 70 errors have already been discovered with the likelhood that there will be more. Each of these must be adjudicated upon by the returning officer in consultation with representatives of the two candidates.

Some of the errors discovered include 13 bundles of ballot papers for Nicky Kelly that should have held 50 votes each, but that instead contained 51, thus underestimating Kelly's vote by 13. There are also a substantial number of ambigious ballots that were ajudicated upon during Saturday's count but that will now be revisited with much greater scrutiny.

Questions have also been raised about the high number of ballot papers that were not stamped by the polling booth staff, thus making them invalid. Whether these unstamped and invalid ballots come from a particular ballot box and whether they have affected the results in favour of a particular candidate remains to be determined.

Both Nicky Kelly and Mildred Fox were at the recount in Arklow yesterday, along with Labour deputy leader Brendan Howlin, elected TDs Liz McManus and Dick Roche and many supporters and political activists from all parties. Kelly and Fox, together with their supporters, were each tense and determined but sympathetic to the situation of the other. The mood at the count centre was calm with a weariness setting in after several of the most exciting days in Wicklow's political history.