Sinn Fein and electoral fraud

Interesting to see Sean O'Rourke mention allegations of past vote rigging to Sinn Fein councillor Padraig Mac Lochlainn on The Week in Politics earlier this evening. Apparently it's been suggested in some quarters that the decline in the Sinn Fein vote may be partly explained by the clean-up in the electoral register that preceeded the election. O'Rourke cited Dublin Central, where the party dropped about 1800 votes despite having a very high-profile candidate in MEP Mary Lou McDonald. Similarly, Sean Crowe lost his seat in Dublin South West, having topped the poll in 2002, shedding 2,500 votes along the way. He put it to Mac Lachlainn that people who were previously able to engage in electoral fraud on previous occasions were weeded out this time around.

The Donegal man gave this short shrift, naturally, noting with a touch of weariness that Sinn Fein have been accused of such practices before in the North. The only mention I can find of it going on down here is in this post on the United Irelander blog. FF backbencher Sean Ardagh accused Sinn Fein of registering non-existent voters, and Bertie weighed in with a story of a house in his constituency that had 80 people registered in it.

Hard to prove and, it seems, not a major problem any more if it did go on. Still, it provides a more interesting explanation of the Sinn Fein collapse than the "squeeze of the small parties" mantra or blaming Gerry Adams for letting the side down in the leaders' debate.