{"id":147172,"date":"2025-10-27T03:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T03:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/147172\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T03:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T03:18:09","slug":"maria-steen-grateful-and-humbled-to-people-who-wrote-her-name-on-presidential-ballot-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/147172\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Steen \u2018grateful and humbled\u2019 to people who wrote her name on presidential ballot \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maria Steen<\/a> has said she is \u201cvery grateful and humbled\u201d to voters who wrote her name on the ballot in the presidential election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the barrister and conservative campaigner said she was not involved in the campaign which encouraged people to spoil their votes.<\/p>\n

Independent TD Catherine Connolly<\/a> was elected Ireland\u2019s 10th president<\/a> in a landslide victory on Saturday, winning 63 per cent of the vote.<\/p>\n

The election saw a total of 213,738 invalid ballots, representing almost 13 per cent of all votes cast. Just 1 per cent of votes were spoiled in the 2018 presidential election.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s This Week, Ms Steen, who missed out on required signatures to make the presidential ballot, said the high volume of spoiled votes represents a \u201cbig rebuke to the political establishment, who sought to prevent any competition in this election\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is clear that there are a lot of people in this country who feel unrepresented.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA spoiled vote during counting of presidential election votes from the D\u00fan Laoghaire constituency. Photograph: Alan Betson \"AA spoiled vote during counting of votes from the D\u00fan Laoghaire constituency. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

She said it\u2019s time the political establishment \u201creally woke up and started listening to the people, and remember that they serve the people\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said she \u201chad nothing to do with the Spoil the Vote campaign at all\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I was not a candidate, I didn\u2019t get the nomination, it wouldn\u2019t be proper for me to call for any particular outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the members of the Spoil the Vote campaign, businessman Declan Ganley<\/a>, said at the campaign\u2019s launch that he would be writing \u201c1 Maria Steen\u201d on his ballot paper.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Spoiled votes increased presidential election turnout, against expectationsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Many of the spoiled votes included the names of Ms Steen and other candidates who failed to secure enough nominations to contest the election.<\/p>\n

She said the high level of spoiled votes was not solely related to her failing to secure the 20 Oireachtas nominations required to contest the election, as there were \u201clots of other issues\u201d at play.<\/p>\n

The barrister, who last month secured nominations from 18 Oireachtas members, said there needed to be a \u201cnational conversation\u201d regarding the blocking of potential presidential candidates.<\/p>\n

She noted that 18 councils nominated candidates in the 2018 presidential election, but that the main parties this time \u201cdecided to block\u201d Independent candidates \u2013 something she said \u201cbackfired\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael<\/a> had earlier this year <\/b>directed its councillors to block the nomination of Independent presidential candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard [T\u00e1naiste] Simon Harris<\/a> making a comment that there were only two candidates on the ballot paper, as if he and others had nothing to do with that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there has to be some honesty from politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Steen didn\u2019t rule out running in future elections.<\/p>\n

She said she tried to secure a nomination in this election \u201cto give hope to people that there was an alternative\u201d and to also \u201cencourage others to get involved in politics\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is a massive disconnect and people checking out of public discourse and political life, and I think that is a shame for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria Steen has said she is \u201cvery grateful and humbled\u201d to voters who wrote her name on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1921,63967,18,13,14,553,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,30253,5,59,44,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-147172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-declan-ganley","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-fine-gael","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-maria-steen","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-presidential-election","26":"tag-simon-harris","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115443971243292081","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}