AT THE POLLS:VOTERS WILL be presented with at least two and sometimes three ballot papers when they go to the polls to vote tomorrow in the elections for the European Parliament, county and town councils and the two Dublin byelections.
Voters in Dublin South and Dublin Central will have three ballot papers; one for the byelection, one for the European election and the third for the local authority election.
In the rest of the country people will have votes in the European elections and in the 34 county and city council elections in which 883 councillors will be elected.
In some parts of the country some voters will also have a third ballot paper as they will be entitled to vote for borough or town council elections as well as for county council and European Parliament elections. These elections will take place in urban areas apart from Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. There are 75 borough or town councils with 744 councillors.
A common ballot box will be used for ballot papers in the European and city/county council elections. A separate box will be provided for town/borough elections and the two Dublin byelections.
The ballot papers in all of the elections will carry a photograph of the candidates as well as their name, the name of their party and the party logo.
The ballot boxes will be emptied on Saturday morning at the count centres and sorted into separate bundles for the European and local election counts. Counting in the local elections will then proceed on Saturday but the Euro count will not begin until 9pm on Sunday night when polling stations across the EU have closed.
There will be tallies from the European elections on Saturday as the ballot papers are sorted and these will give a rough indication of the result but will probably not be accurate enough with regard to the designation of the final seat in each constituency.
The full result of the European elections will not be available until some time on Monday.
The count in the two Dublin byelections will take place on Saturday and results should be available that evening.
Every Irish and EU citizen aged 18 years or over and who is included in the register of electors which came into force on February 15th, 2009, is entitled to vote at the European elections.
The electorate for European elections currently stands at 3.14 million. This figure does not include electors who have been subsequently included in the various supplements to the register.
When it comes to the local elections everybody, irrespective of nationality, living in Ireland who is aged 18 or over is entitled to vote as long as they are on the register. The number of people on the register is 3.23 million.
For the byelections all Irish or British citizens are entitled to vote. The electorate in Dublin Central is 57,529 and in Dublin South it stands at 99,305.
Polling stations will open at 7am tomorrow and will remain open until 10pm.
