The final tally from the Laois General Election count centre shows that Fine Gael candidate Willie Aird will top the poll – and fall just short of being elected on the first count.
According to tallies supplied to LaoisToday by Independent candidate Aisling Moran – which are missing just two boxes (one from Rathdowney and the St Vincent’s Hospital Mountmellick one), Aird is set to break 9,000 first preference votes, a stuning performance from him in his first General Election.
Over 37,000 votes have been tallied meaning the quota is likely to be close to 9,500.
Fianna Fáil’s Sean Fleming is about 1,200 votes behind Aird according to the tallies while Brian Stanley (Independent) is about 1,200 behind again. Sinn Fein’s Maria McCormack looks set to be about 1,800 votes further back.
Stanley’s vote is down about 4,000 on what it was in 2020 as a strong performance from Sinn Féin’s new candidate Maria McCormack has eaten away at his support.
McCormack isn’t without a chance as there will still be about 9,000 votes from the candidates behind her still to come into play.
Incidentally, five of those eight candidates are women and Maria McCormack may prove transfer friendly – but she does have a lot of ground to make up.
An official announcement on the first count is expected to be made at about 5pm.
Laois General Election – final tally
- Willie Aird (Fine Gael) – 9,026 (24.13%)
- Sean Fleming (Fianna Fáil) – 7,826 (20.92%)
- Brian Stanley (Independent) – 6,654 (17.79%)
- Maria McCormack (Sinn Féin) – 4,819 (12.88%)
- Aisling Moran (Independent) – 2,918 (7.8%)
- Elaine Mullally (Independent) – 2,378 (6.36%)
- Mary Hand (Aontu) – 1,029 (2.75%)
- Ken Mooney (People Before Profit) – 725 (1.94%)
- Rosie Palmer (Green Party) – 725 (1.94%)
- Pauline Flanagan (Independent) – 600 (1.6%)
- Austin Stack (Fianna Fáil) – 492 (1.32%)
- Jason Lynch (Independent) – 162 (0.43%)
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