The months of knocking on doors and handing out leaflets has now ended, and voters go to the polling stations tomorrow, Friday, to cast their votes.
As voters should know by now, there are several matters requiring their attention, such as the 2019 Local Elections, the European Elections, and the Referendum on the Regulation of Divorce.
In North Cork there have been changes to electoral boundaries since the 2014 elections, with Kanturk Mallow Municipal District now becoming two districts, five seats up for grabs in Mallow Municipal District and four in Kanturk. Some candidates have moved to different districts: John Paul O’Shea moves to Kanturk, while his brother Tony is running in Mallow. There are seven candidates for five seats in Mallow, Liam Madden, Cian Moriarty and Tony O’Shea standing for Fine Gael, Gearóid Murphy and Pat Hayes for Fianna Fáil, James Kennedy for Labour, and Melissa Mullane for Sinn Fein.
In Fermoy Municipal District there are nine in the running for five seats, Kay Dawson (FG), David Kenneally (Labour), Noel McCarthy (FG), June Murphy (SD), Deirdre O’Brien (FF), Frank O’Flynn (FF), William O’Leary (FF), Frank Roche (Ind), Helen White (SF), and in Kanturk there are four seats and eight hopefuls, Ted Bradley (GP), Ian Doyle (FF), Ado Mazombe (Ind), Lillian Meade (SF), Bernard Moynihan (FF), Gerard Murphy (FG), John Paul O’Shea (FG), Paddy Scully (Aontu).
Polling will take place from 7am to 10pm at the usual polling stations in Mallow, and it is understood that the opening of ballot boxes will be held in Mallow GAA Complex on Saturday morning, followed by the count in Mallow Youth Centre for all the North Cork districts. A timetable for results is impossible to predict, due to the counting of votes for several Municipal Districts, but hopefully matters will not drag out as badly as in the last General Election when it took until 6.30am on Sunday morning to elect the first candidate.