THE COUNTRY TOOK to the ballots yesterday to vote in the presidential election and two referendums, while voters in Dublin West also voted in a by-election to fill the late Brian Lenihan’s Dáil seat.

After polling yesterday, the ballot boxes were transferred to a constituency count centre, where counting will begin at 9am today.

The central count centre for the presidential election is Dublin Castle, where the overall returning officer for the country will be based. This official will announce the presidential election quota later today.

The first task facing counters this morning is to separate the papers into each of the referendums and the elections. Counting the presidential votes takes precedence over the referendum count, and the official result of the first count is expected at around 7pm this evening.

However, early tallies could come in by lunchtime. Tallies are unofficial counts which often indicate the direction of the official count.

The quota for that first count will be known after the number of valid votes have been counted – for the presidential election, this is half of all valid votes plus one vote.

The referendum results will be made known after the count has completed on the presidential election, but the Dublin West by-election result may be known this evening.

While you’re waiting for the results to come out, you might be interested in finding out what Eamon de Valera and James Cagney had in common, along with ten other things you may not know about our past presidents.