An election to all 29 seats on Donegal County Council took place on 20 June 1985 as part of the 1985 Irish local elections. County Donegal was divided into six local electoral areas (LEAs) to elect councillors for a five-year term of office on the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV). This term was extended for a further year, to 1991. In February 1985 the County and County Borough Commission recommended that membership in Donegal County Council be increased, resulting in the available seats increasing to 29.
Results by party Party Seats ± ±% 1122,25935.94% 4.14% 9 118,34729.62% 0.23% 5 110,59717.1% 0.35% 2 14,2906.93% 1.93% 1 1,506 2.46% 0.36% 11,3522.2% 1.39% 0 425 0.7%— 0 13,1655.55% 0.82%Total29 157,013100.00%—
Results by local electoral area Sitting in italics Buncrana
Donegal
Glenties
Letterkenny
Milford
Postal vote fraud In late 2015, a previously-sealed National Archives paper revealed a voting fraud scheme occurring just prior to the election. In June 1985, a Garda investigation was launched following the secretary of Donegal County Council reporting irregularities. Of the 3,274 applications made for postal votes in the county, only 634 were considered to be compliant with application procedures. Various irregularities were found including: applications containing dubious signatures, a large numbers of applicants claiming to be employment in professions in far exceeding those known to be present in the area, a difference in ink used between filling out the form and signing, and a number of individuals witnessing multiple applications at the same time and place. While the irregularities occurred in all electoral areas, Glenties and Milford had the most.
When the returning officer for the county council returned certain forms requesting clarification he reported that some individuals stated they had no memory of making applications, others had returned their forms with a different professions to that state on the initial form, and many denied witnessing the signatures they were supposedly present for.
In one such case a member of the council approached a house from which a number of applications had supposedly came from, only to discover the house was occupied by students with no knowledge of the applications. The students did state however that they been approached by an unidentified male who advised they claim they had made the applications and that any voting cards issued to the house would be collected later. In another case, one person apparently presented nine different applications for approval.
The voting fraud scheme appeared to have been a failure, since only fully compliant applications were issued with voting cards. A government memo stated that the Gardaí intended to investigate the other 2,640 suspicious applications.
References
External links Official website Irelandelection.com results for 1985 Donegal County Council elections Irishelectionliterature