IrelandPaper only
Council of Europe founding member (1949); EU member since 1973. Parliamentary republic with a single-transferable-vote (PR-STV) system for Dáil Éireann (lower house) elections. Elections administered by Returning Officers in each Dáil constituency, now coordinated by An Coimisiún Toghcháin (the Electoral Commission, established by the Electoral Reform Act 2022). Paper ballots, in-person at the polling station 07:00-22:00 on polling day; postal voting limited to specific categories (Defence Forces, Gardaí, students away from home, prisoners, disability, abroad on polling day); special voting for those in nursing homes / hospitals. No general postal voting, no early voting, no internet voting. Foundational corpus: Electoral Act 1992 (No. 23/1992), Referendum Act 1994 (No. 12/1994), Electoral Reform Act 2022 (No. 30/2022) — 439 sections. CAVEAT: Electoral Act 1997 and Standards in Public Office Act 2001 are not yet in the corpus, so EAdI (administrative independence) and ECI (campaign-finance integrity) scores underrepresent Ireland's actual regime. Source: irishstatutebook.ie.
Voting Channels
The voting channels available under current law, each verified against the cited statute.
- Election dayElection-day in personall
Polling stations open 07:00–22:00 on polling day; in-person paper ballot via single-transferable-vote (PR-STV).
Electoral Act 1992 ss. 88-100 (Polling)
- EarlyEarly in personnot available
No general early in-person voting; presiding officers may take votes on islands in advance under EA 1992 s. 85.
- PostalPostal / maillimited
Postal voting limited to specific categories: Defence Forces, Gardaí (police), diplomatic service abroad, prisoners, full-time students away from home, voters with disabilities/illness, certain occupations preventing polling-place attendance, and electors abroad on polling day.
Electoral Act 1992 Part XIII (ss. 63-77), as amended by ERA 2022
- ProxyProxynot available
No proxy voting.
- InternetInternetnot available
No internet voting.
Methodology Radar
Dimension Breakdown
Primary Instruments
| Citation | Type | Title | Sections | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electoral Act 1992 | Statute | Electoral Act 1992 | 174 | active |
| Electoral Reform Act 2022 | Statute | Electoral Reform Act 2022 | 207 | active |
| Referendum Act 1994 | Statute | Referendum Act 1994 | 58 | active |
Methodologies — Datapoint Drill-In
Each methodology card above takes you to Ireland's scoring detail for that methodology — every datapoint, with rationale and the exact statute that justifies the score.