2019 Sligo County Council Election
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An election to all 18 seats on Sligo County Council was held on 24 May 2019 as part of the 2019 Irish local elections.
County Sligo County Sligo ( , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region and is part of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in ...
was divided into 3
local electoral area A local electoral area (LEA; ) is an electoral area for elections to Local government in the Republic of Ireland, local authorities in Ireland. All elections in the Republic of Ireland, elections use the single transferable vote. Republic of Ir ...
s (LEAs) to elect councillors for a five-year term of office on the
electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...
of
proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...
by means of the
single transferable vote The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vot ...
(PR-STV).


Boundary review

At the 2014 Sligo County Council election, County Sligo was divided into two
local electoral area A local electoral area (LEA; ) is an electoral area for elections to Local government in the Republic of Ireland, local authorities in Ireland. All elections in the Republic of Ireland, elections use the single transferable vote. Republic of Ir ...
s, both of which breached upper limit of 7 seats in the terms of reference of the 2018 LEA boundary review. Following its recommendations, the boundaries were redrawn to create three LEAs.


Overview

A total of 35 candidates contested the county's 18 seats, of whom fifteen were outgoing councillors.
Fianna Fáil Fianna Fáil ( ; ; meaning "Soldiers of Destiny" or "Warriors of Fál"), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party (), is a centre to centre-right political party in Ireland. Founded as a republican party in 1926 by Éamon de ...
and
Fine Gael Fine Gael ( ; ; ) is a centre-right, liberal-conservative, Christian democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil Éireann. The party had a member ...
each had nine candidates.
Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...
had three, Solidarity/ People Before Profit had two, while and one each for the Labour Party, Green Party and Renua. The nine independent candidates included Declan Bree, who was County Sligo's longest serving councillor. Thirteen of the fifteen candidates who were outgoing councillors were re-elected, including Bree who was first elected in 1974 to both the County Council and Sligo Borough Council. Several seats were decided by very narrow margins, and result was that Fine Gael gained three seats to become the largest party, with six seats. Fianna Fáil lost three seats, and the other group totals were unchanged. The long-serving Bree was re-elected in the Sligo–Strandhill LEA.


Results by party


Results by local electoral area


Ballymote–Tubbercurry

The Fine Gael director of elections made a formal complaint about the large increase in the number of postal votes cast — 252 compared to 131 in the same district in the 2014 election and 20 and 17 in the other two districts in 2019. The ensuing Garda investigation into potential
electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...
was still ongoing in February 2022.


Sligo–Drumcliff


Sligo–Strandhill


Footnotes


Results by gender


Changes after 2019


Co-options


References


Sources

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Citations

{{2019 Irish local elections
Sligo Sligo ( ; , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20,608 in 2022, it is the county's largest urban centre (constituting 2 ...
Sligo County Council elections