The Uneducated PT Podcast - 🎙️ Episode 124 — Elaine Mullally: Spoiling Your Vote, Free Speech & The State of Irish Politics

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

In this episode of The Uneducated PT Podcast, Karl O’Rourke sits down with independent political voice Elaine Mullally for a wide-ranging and thought-provoking conversation about Ireland’s political landscape and the growing “spoil your vote” movement ahead of the 2025 presidential election. Elaine talks about how she first became politically active, why she chose to remain independent rather than join a party, and how the whip system shapes trust and accountability in government. She shares her views on recent events in Citywest, the impact of IPAS facilities on local communities, and her concerns about media and government responses. The discussion also covers free speech, Catherine Connolly’s presidential campaign, and the controversy surrounding Maria Steen’s exclusion from the ballot. Elaine speaks candidly about social-media division, the treatment of differing opinions online, and the struggles faced by families awaiting autism and disability services. Finally, Karl and Elaine dig into the idea behind “spoiling your vote”—why some citizens feel none of the candidates represent them, and how disengagement and protest voting reflect deeper issues in Irish civic life. 💬 Topics include:How Elaine got into politics and why she’s independentThe Citywest incident and asylum policyThe presidential election and freedom of expressionMaria Steen, media bias, and representationParty politics, the whip system, and public trustSocial-media intolerance and divisionAutism services and government prioritiesThe “Spoil Your Vote” campaignFollow Elaine Mullally on social media for more of her commentary on Irish politics and culture. 🎧 Listen now to Episode 124 of The Uneducated PT Podcast with Karl O’Rourke.

Think too much about I don't think. Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next episode. A 10-year-old Irish girl is allegedly being sexually assaulted by a foreign national

at City West Hotel in Dublin in the early hours of... Monday morning. Back in August I think it was in Saggart you spoke about the impact of IPAS facilities on local communities in your view was something like this incident inevitable?

Something like this is absolutely disgraceful as you know yourself and I don't like I wouldn't say inevitable but when you have a mass amount of people coming in here and you have a Tao T-shock who said at the time

that Mihal Martin had said that they were not going to be doing any security checks on Ukrainian people in particular coming in here, but they don't seem to have done any security checks on a lot of people coming in here. So if you've got a lot of people coming into a country and there's no security checks been done on them, well then it is inevitable that you're going to attract people in who are escaping something from their other country or, you know, you're not going to get the creme de la creme of a country coming to Ireland when they've been promised all of the free stuff as well. We know Roderick Gorman sent out a message in so many different languages.

And that message basically promised people that Ireland was going to be the promised land. Turnkey property within three months, you know, the social welfare benefits, children going to college, all of that paid for. Like, why wouldn't they come? Yeah. I mean, being realistic, why wouldn't they come? So what happened was horrific, but like that's not an isolated incident either because we know in the case of Ashton Murphy and the two, there was two men in. in Mayo who were killed about three years ago. So it's not an isolated incident. And unfortunately, I think what people are concerned about,

what people are worried about is that it's going to become more frequent. Don't forget, these men are already in a facility. What happens if they're brought into the wider communities and put into houses and homes and people don't know anything about them? The government don't know anything about them. So they can't reassure us. Because they can't say, oh, these people are fine, they're safe. because they don't know anything about them.

You had a great line I listened to on the podcast. They didn't even vet their own presidential candidate. How could they be vetting there, these people coming into the country? It's true, though, isn't it? It is true. Like, they didn't. That's a fact. But they openly said they weren't going to,

I don't like the word vet, but they said they weren't going to be doing security checks on them. That's an open statement. And how there wasn't more of a backlash back then, when that was said there's too many things just been let's slide and that's the problem

now everything's festering you can see the anger on the street you can see the anger on people everybody I'm speaking to is just so upset over this yeah well I was going to ask you what was the feeling like back in August

speaking to the people who actually lived in the area of Sagart and around the city west hotel so the feeling then was fear anxiety it was quite a well attended gathering for It was a really wet, miserable Saturday morning,

and it was very well attended. And there was a lot of Gardi there, and the Gardi are concerned and worried, because we don't know what the actual impact. Like, you know, there's any studies on multiculturalism, it doesn't really end well. You can't force this. The only way it works is if up until 2020,

it looked like we had a good migration system. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but at least it was controlled. The borders were controlled, as in somebody couldn't just come in here with no documents and just fling them into a toilet 10 minutes before, after stepping off a plane. And it did work a little bit better because people were coming here and then they were integrated, they were brought into communities and more was done to help them to integrate with the people and people to integrate with them.

Plus we've seen a huge influx of Polish people who work very well with our, their culturally, they're very similar. If you bring people from a different culture or you let them come here from different cultures, then we don't know. There's cultures not necessarily who will never get on together. Yeah. So I think more should have been done over the last few years. Is it too late?

I don't know. I seriously worry about the people of Sagitt were concerned back then. That's why they asked if I would come up and support them, which I did do. And, you know, if the government and if they want to help people to understand or to integrate, they would make sure that they're meeting communities. They wouldn't be busing them in the middle of the night under the cloak

of darkness. They know they're doing wrong and they know that they're not working on behalf of the people in the communities. They're doing what they want to do and it's not working. What I'm confused about is, like if this person's asylum application was denied

yeah, he stayed in the system, does that mean we even have a system? Yeah, there's a lot of, it seems to be a lot of discrepancies within that system. There doesn't seem to be, as I say, before, we seemed to have something of value. But with the way it's operating now, not only was he not supposed to be here, he was issued a deportation order back in March, which means that he should have been, it's like if somebody commits a crime in this country and to go into court and the judge says, oh, you're guilty six months in jail, now go off to jail yourself. Like, who's going

to go to jail themselves? I mean, so you issue, if somebody, if somebody's, you issue, if somebody, somebody's been issued a deportation order here, then they should be put on a plane and brought back to the country where they came from. They shouldn't be saying in a courtroom, okay, or issue a deportation order, go home. Because that man was here since March. If he had been deported, then there wouldn't have been any riots last night in the city west. There wouldn't, no matter what people say, because he wouldn't have been in the country to do what he did. So deportation orders are not working because they're not been enforced. But then another question has to be asked. If that man was issued a deportation.

importation order and he was brought back to City West Hotel, then the government were fundamentally using our taxpayers' money to keep him here when they know he shouldn't have been here. So where's, that doesn't make sense to anybody because

he shouldn't have been here. The government told him not to be here and yet they funded his bill while he was here and put him up instead of saying out, you're gone. What was your assessment of the government's and the media's portrayal of this issue? I know during that Catherine Connolly said it's extremely difficult actually to get into this country

you have to get a work permit you have to go through hoops to get it and Jim O'Callan condemned the scenes obviously of the violence last night and said unacceptable and said there was no there's no correlation between IPAS centres and crime levels yeah well that's because they won't gather data yeah I was about to say because the only one that I really found decent data on this was Denmark I think of a pretty they have they keep very good that on it. But we don't think the

it's probably intentional so we don't know the exact extent of how many crimes are associated with that. You can say there's no correlation if there's no one to check. Well if you know it there's no one to back you off it's like yeah but I think the media reaction was

kind of stereotypical wasn't it? It's like I don't believe any genuine person who has a concern about what's going on in this country turned up to that protest last night with any intention of number one, throwing anything out of guard. Number two, setting a car on fire

or starting any kind of trouble. Genuine people are concerned about their community. They're not going out to start trouble. So there seems to be a handful showing up at certain events across the country and this seems to happen. You know, start condemning concerned people over their concerns and worries.

There's something not right. There's something not right about the... Well, I think it's kind of... It's kind of telling, isn't it, that they're more outraged by, like, antisocial behaviour than they are of a 10-year-old girl. Absolutely. I think that's... Where was their outrage at that? Yeah.

There wasn't, Annie. They didn't really even mention it, did they? No. Yeah. No. I mean, I know the news reported on it. But it was reported in such a way that, oh, he's been, he's going to, he's been in court. Yeah, we've dealt with this.

That's sorted. Yeah. But it's kind of like... You've no right to be angry. We've dealt with this. Yeah. Lessons will be learned. How many times have we heard that in the last?

couple of years so I don't think people are falling for it there's a lot of anger there do you have any opinions on Tustla so 38 kids missing since the start of the year and the language from Tustla was this little girl absconded from a trip to the city centre which sounds like blaming language you know and rather than taking responsibility for for the failing of the child 10 years of age yeah I mean do we need to say any more than she absconded from yeah she was 10 years of age she wasn't a team a kind of an irrational teenager or something that you could say she was

16, 17 years of age. She was a child and somebody is responsible for that child within Tussla and should not have let her out of her sight. Tuzzle's Chief Executive Kate Duggan earns 211k a year plus 6K in travel. It seems like the worst they perform at their job

the more promotions they get. Yeah, I know. And I mean no justification, no, no again we'll hear oh we want to get a report from Tustla but when we get it, when we get it's going to be too late and it's going to be whitewash. People know this.

Despite what the Irish government and the media think, people are not stupid. They can see all of this exactly as we see it. And just because you've got a cohort of people who come out and fight in every occasion, everybody knows what's going on here.

And that child was in the state care and that man was under state care. This should never have happened, ever. It shouldn't have happened. anyway but the fact that there have been in state care adds a degree another degree of well why else is happening yeah it's very sinister if you wanted to look even deeper into it there's a I know there's a research study in UCD from 2023 that I was looking at and it doesn't look it doesn't look good really for tussler and going on to the presidential election and I want to

talk a little about free speech as well Catherine Connolly said she'll be a president for everyone Do you think that's true? She'll be a president for everyone on the left and the far left at that. We're not even talking centre left. We're talking right over there. No, she won't be a president for everyone and she certainly is not my president

and never will be my president. What were your thoughts on how she handled the Elijah Burke situation in Galway? I thought Katrin was given a unique opportunity to show that she would have been a fantastic president by asking the crowd to stop heckling when he asked the question I thought he was very, very respectful

in his manner, its approach and I thought she could have said, I would like to hear this question and I would like to answer this question. And even if she wasn't 100% comfortable answering the whole thing, on camera, she could have said, I would love to speak to you afterwards in private about this

matter, had she not been comfortable. So I think she had a unique opportunity and she blew it. Can we speak? Can we speak? Can you speak? Can you speak? You say your fourth free speech? He's your pre-approved audience. three of your questions. I'm a law student here at...

I'm a law student here at... I'm a law student here at the University of Galway and tonight you're here because you want to be President of Ireland. And, you know, as President of Ireland, your war will be to represent the people of Ireland. What you have to say tonight about Ennup Byrne, my brother, who was incarcerated for his beliefs on transgenderism. Do you believe that religion should be protected?

Do you believe she is very, should be protected? My question is sorry tonight, just for Catherine, sorry. Is this, because you see your questions are allowed and you agree with that by me. I think even if her opinion I completely disagreed with it, at least if she answered the question. And she wouldn't even give that. And gave him their respect. It was extremely disrespect for what she did. And then getting the guards to come in and take him out.

You said neither candidate even remotely represents me and many other people I talk to. Can you expand on that feeling? So the President of Ireland should, in my opinion, and I'd say many others would agree with this, they should encapsulate a huge proportion of society. and whether that's I mean it's a political role so we can't pretend it's not

but whether that's centre, centre right, centre left extreme left or extreme right but we needed we should have had at least one other candidate on that ballot paper who appeals to another a completely separate audience so the President of Ireland should encapsulate

all people and you're not going to get one person that's going to sue everybody but the two people that are left we had left left and left left left and far left We know Jim Gavin's jumped off its horse. He's gone. Heather Humphreys last year was pushing for the yes-yes and the referendum. They got that majorly wrong.

Her party signifies everything that's wrong in this country because they're part of a coalition with Tophina Faw. So you can't separate them out at the moment. Both parties are just as bad as each other. We needed a centre-right conservative candidate on that ballot paper. And they can't say, oh, people think because I was working with, Maria Steen up to a point that oh I'm throwing my ties out of the pram

because Maria Steen didn't get on the ballot I'm upset and frustrated at the fact that there is nobody on the ballot paper that I can't actually vote for and that could have been I mean there was other people who were trying to get through the Nick Delahandy could have been Garrette Sheridan Nick Delahanty Garretcherden worked extremely hard

at getting onto that ballot paper he worked the councils there was no excuse for him not A lot of people were saying about Maria Steen that she didn't start early enough but then the Garret Sheridan case kind of Well, it blows that one in the water. And Maria had gone to, she'd applied and got nominations from, I believe, six to eight county councils. It was the fact that the county councils were blocking.

This has nothing got to do with not working. You need nominations from county councils to get onto a presidential election. She had received the nominations. She had gone to the county councils where she had received those nominations. She'd made a full presentation to them. In some cases, she gave up her whole evening to go. Yeah, could you talk a little bit about that? for people that kind of don't know what you have to kind of go through to get them, to get

on the ballot base. Sure. So she would have needed four county councillors to county councils to back her and that would be the majority of county councillors within a council. So if we just take Fingall, for example, so the candidates would have applied to any county councils they want and in a lot of cases the county councils will let them come in and make a presentation. In some cases they wouldn't let them in unless they already received. a nomination from one of the councillors.

It might be just to reduce numbers because there was a lot of people applied. So when you go in then through the councillor, so say again, Fingall, there was a nomination, two nominations, I believe, from Fingall. You go in, you make a presentation and then afterwards, there's questions and answer session.

It can take hours. And then at the end of it, all of the councillors vote, whether or not to put the... So Garad Sheridan actually got nominated from Fingal, wasn't Maria. And then there's a separate vote after the nomination process

to decide will the council be putting this person through. But in previous years, and so this year, because of the whip system, Finnegal openly, Simon Harris said under the whip system, you're not allowed to put a candidate through. Fina Foll said it, but it didn't

come out publicly, so they were instructed not to. So predominantly what would have happened was, in all the other presidential elections, Three candidates could have come through the Eroctus, the way the tree came through here, Finifal, Finna Fianigail and Catherine Connolly. And then the councils would normally,

their councillors would abstain from blocking a candidate. But they were told to block the candidate. Yeah, I think in the other elections, the last two, I think what, there was six on the ballot and seven on the ballot or something like that, and much more independence as well. In the last presidential election, there was six presidential candidates. Three of them came through to council.

What do you think has changed that now they're pushing that kind of approach to block? I think they're afraid. They're afraid that the Conservative Centre Right movement might have grown a lot since even last year. I think they were probably feeling the mood on the ground was building and rather than take a chance and put somebody on the ballot and find out that they're absolutely, you know, getting it, excuse me, rather than put somebody on the ballot and find out that they're absolutely, you know, getting it, excuse me, rather than put somebody on the ballot. somebody on to find out that they've got it wrong with the people, they just decided to block them. Now there's also another theory on that. Go on. Okay. So maybe, don't forget, in the early stages, Connor McGregor had his name in the hat, and maybe they just wanted to stop Connor McGregor getting onto the ballot. Ireland, under my tenure, the will of the people will be heard.

I don't know, it's a real answer, but they were afraid. Because if they weren't afraid, why didn't they let the tree who had a chance coming through, Gareth, Sheridan, Nick Delahante and Maria Steen, why didn't you just say to your councillors, just do what you normally do, you know, find your good candidate, put them through if you're happy, and we'll say nothing

about it, but they told them not to put them on the ballot. Do not let an independent through. So they know the feeling around. That's why I'm hoping this campaign will spoil the vote. We'll talk about that quite shortly. But research from Sunday Independent

showed that 44% of those polled believed Maria Steen should have been on the ballot, well 22% would have voted for her meaning she would likely have been ahead of Gavin at that stage. So, well, we'll never know. Why were you such a big advocate

of Maria Steen being on the, in particular? In particular, Maria, I suppose because I had heard her speak last year at the referendum, I was very, very impressed. She spoke extremely well she stood up to Mihal Martian she really destroyed him in that debate I was going back over yeah I've watched it loads of times in terms of migration and

thus look through migration so you don't recognise that family so I'm not making comments on sort of specific red herrings it's not a red herring this is a reality in the new Ireland that we live in we have many new immigrants that are citizens of Ireland now is his family a family or not sorry in terms of we've many different types of relationships. Yes. And I'm asking is a polygamous marriage in that case? Sorry, bigamy is illegal. Polygamy. Sorry, polygamy is also illegal in this. But so it's legally, it's illegal and she just and she's so respectful and she's so ladylike and she's so knowledgeable and she's so intelligent and articulate it was just like no you couldn't have done it

better. So she she she really just showed me what she would be like if she had to be a president and I love her family values and I don't necessarily agree on every single issue as we don't yeah but fundamentally I you know her she would have aligned with a lot of my values and and I'm quite a traditional person you know I think I think it's important to have some values and family values and cultural values and stuff so it's it's funny because like I think the establishment we're very much trying to paint there as like backwards whereas I'm my being of the opinion well

but I think I'd rather go backwards than go forward in regard to what they're trying to do yeah absolutely yeah I think on the news 6-1 news on the evening before the nomination process closed she was asked do you really want to drag Ireland back to the 1930s yeah yeah I got

a lot of people who I'd be friends with because I obviously put it on social media that I would be supporting her and I got all their messages in the inbox do you know she's like she's the devil all this stuff I'm like you know it's incredible how people just want to put others into a box and they're all the intolerant left by the way who really think that we're

we're scary people diverse diversity is their strength but not diverse opinions essentially what was your opinion on smearing of her handbag as well oh i just thought that was hilarious i mean you know poor little bag did nothing to know but he did it really so is there do you not to have a president who was a bit stylish. Oh yeah, I mean, I'd love that bag. Let's be honest. I did get a photograph with it by the way. Like, what was social media something?

Can you explain the whip system a little bit more in regards to Irish politics? Just for people who don't really understand how politics work and aren't really savvy on what's going on. Like, what is the whip system? Why? How can it be abused and why do you believe that it's essentially wrong? Because I know some people would say that, well, you know, oh, well, why would our party, you know, nominate someone else? Yeah, so the whip system was, theoretically it's a good system because it's designed that if, say, parties promise particular, they make particular promises coming up to elections to the electorate.

And they'll say, well, we're going to under approval, if we get in, we will do this, this and this. So then what they will do is they'll whip their TDs to vote in the legislation that they need brought in in order to bring. So it makes a certain amount of sense. If they want to bring the legislation through, the doll, they need to know that their members are going to vote a true. Otherwise, it's a free-for-all when they get in there and they could make promises and then their members wouldn't let their TDs

wouldn't let them bring them to fruition. So in theory, it is a good system. Except it's been abused because presidential election candidates were county councillors were whipped into you cannot let this person. person true. They weren't told you can't vote for them. They weren't told, you know,

you can't nominate them. They were told you have to block them. It's very, very different. So I don't know whether it is constitutional or not what they did. Only time will tell. But it feels wrong. And it feels wrong to ordinary people.

And I've spoken to a lot of people who said that they would never have voted for Maria Steen, Nick Delahanty or Garrett Sheridan, but they are really, really annoyed. Yeah. That the government took their right because they're saying, and what if there was

two right candidates on that ballot paper? Yeah, well, that would be a question. Do you think if there was, it was the other way around where there was, you know, two or three you know, send their right and, you know, a little bit further from that, would it

go the other way? You can imagine they'd be kicking and screaming from the rooftops. They would have got somebody on for sure. But but it's because it's a conservative right they just don't want anybody to go forward what would you say for like the people on the centre

right who are like well I don't like Heather Humphrey but you know she's not as far left as as the other one what would your opinion be on that matter I would say spoil the vote I can't

I can't reconcile either of the candidates because neither of the candidates would fit anywhere remotely near, like I've yet to hear a strong definition from either of them as to what is a woman? If you can't, if you're a woman running for the President of Ireland and you can't be clear and defined about that statement, then I have an issue. Did you watch the video of Barbie Kardashian being released from prison now? I watched about three or four minutes of it and I had to switch it off. I just thought it was terrible.

So, I don't view myself as being a risk to the public in general, but just certain members of the public. My mother, Maria Gentile, my father, Alessio Gentile, also the governor of Limerick Prison, I don't, if I can't find my, I don't know where my parents are, but if I can't find my parents, I will murder. She was the four counts of making threats of rape and harm against two women in the prison. One prisoner and a prison officer, when the case came up in the Limerick circuit court in October, in 2024, Barbary gave testimony about how he had told the women he would like to rape them using an object so as to leave them unable to have children. So I think, you know, in regards to women's spaces, it's probably important that your president can define what the woman is. Very, very. And your president should be able to stand up and say very openly and very clearly that I do not. endorse trans women if they want to call themselves but I do not endorse a man sharing

any spaces for women so that's changing rooms that's bathrooms that's prisons that's anywhere and I would go so far as sports as well yeah they have no place competing in sport in activities boys have no place competing against girls unless it's mixed you know unless it's intentionally mixed so So that's something I would expect my president to be able to clearly state. And so they're both really, like the two candidates, they're both basically the same when it comes to like social politics. There's very little between them, very little.

They seem to have differences over Gaza and Israel and stuff. Nothing got to do with us here. Yeah. And, you know, they seem to be fighting over silly things. I read that you were quite passionate as well about autism and special needs. and that it was something that you campaigned on. What does it say here? So according to the HSE,

more than 15,000 children are waiting longer than six months for an assessment of need for disability of autism services and this number is projected to grow to 25,000 by the year's end. So it feels like another kind of failure of the government in terms of what they're focusing on. Carl, it was one of the things,

the most shocking things, when I was campus in last year. Like I did a canvas of the hole of leash. There was a lot of work in that, but I did it over months. And the amount of parents, grandparents, answer in the door telling me that their child at special needs, they're one of their family members, they're waiting for school places, they're waiting for assessments, they're waiting for treatment when they have assessments. And there's a shortage of staff, trained staff in that area because it's very, very difficult to get in. so just all these obstacles

and instead of sitting down with families and professionals and working out how do we overcome these obstacles the government just keep thinking that oh we'll throw 4 million at that this year but that 4 million has been soaked up on bureaucracy

and layers upon layers whereas all the while people on the ground are suffering so it was a huge problem it is a huge problem it hasn't gone away I didn't get a So there was, you know, there's very little you can do when you're on the outside looking in.

Again, that's why I ran because I was hoping that I could get in the inside and then start chipping away and seeing what I could do from in there. But it is still an issue and it's an issue that, you know, I'm still quite familiar with. I'm still talking to people who would really, really are struggling with all of that. And it's shame because topics like that they kind of get forgotten about because of, you know, all the divisive stuff that we shouldn't even have to have a conversation. on. Yeah, 100%.

Fergus Finley, Rowan, Irish Examiner, are you kidding me? Deliberately spoiling your vote is exactly the same as saying to the rest of the world. You make the decision for me. I couldn't be bothered.

It's giving away your vote. I presume you disagree. I do, yes. Not showing up is letting others aside. So I just think there's a couple of scenarios. So we need a good turnout.

I mean, a low turnout was going to look bad on government anyway because they should be encouraging people to come out and vote for the president and people should feel enthused enough to get up off their backside and go and vote. But if they're not, then that's a message. There's already an indication that things are not going good for you as a government. If you're pushing this, remember, these people were not elected as presidential ballot, as, you know, candidates. They were selected.

They were selected by their parties. and we're not really engaged in this election and there's a awful lot of people just kind of on and they're switched off so I'm hoping they show up the spoil the vote is an extremely democratic way to protest we've seen protests across the country we've seen what happens at them are they working I would argue that instead of standing outside city west last night that same amount of people may have done

much more harm had they been standing outside that all today are on a basically that's where the government are it's not the people's fault inside city west it's the government's fault they're the ones making decisions that's where you that's where they should have been protesting but we have a huge opportunity

on Friday to protest possibly the biggest protest that we could have ever had and that's for people to show up spoil or vote and tell the government exactly what they think of them the message won't be recorded but the spoiled votes well yeah so it's extremely extremely important. It's probably, we're not going to get another shot for another four years

till the locals and Europeans and general election again. So you're going to have to endure this for four years. And people say, Asher, it doesn't matter if you spoil your vote. Catherine Connolly or Heather Humphys are going to get in. Yes, they are. But could you imagine what would happen if that spoiled vote was significant? What does significant look like for people that aren't sure? Well, at the moment, we're starting off with 6%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 6% is already 379% higher than the previous than any other presidential election. So we're already making waves here. So it's already predicted to be the biggest spoiler vote in history.

Absolutely. 100%. 100%. And while we could, well, previously it would be assumed that the spoiled votes are accidental. Yeah. This is intentional. This is people actually going out to spoil. Yeah. you make it intentional

what can you do to basically spoil your vote? So what I'll be doing is I'll be writing any message I want across the top of the ballot paper. So if you were going to vote for somebody, you might write Maria Seen No. 1 or Dick Delahanty or whoever you were going to

vote for. If you just want to write a message across the top of the ballot you can just write whatever it is you want to say, you put it on there big in your marker, bring your pen or marker in and write it big and write it big and write it bold or if you want to leave a blank you can but the

idea is that you'll put an X beside each of the candidates in their boxes so it's very clear that you're not giving any of them a vote it's probably worth mentioning as well now I'm not quite disconspiratory but some people are saying don't leave the ballot

boxes blank because you're only allowing somebody to come in afterwards but I would just say the three X is covered you're safe with that one and it saves a lot of arguments as well when I was discussing this initially about leaving them blank

because that would have been my initial plan and it was like, no, don't do that. So just the three-axis is kind of where we are and make sure you bring a pen, you mark them in and you make sure actually this is something that's not been said and it's probably very, very important. Make sure the ballot paper is stamped

by the officials. So when you go in, sorry, you don't even have to hand in your polling card for this. I think you just show up and they'll mark off your name. But maybe bring your card anyway, just in case. They'll rip off a ballot paper and then they must seal that ballot paper

or else it is invalid. So it's very important people understand that that won't go into the spoiled votes pile. They're invalid, as far as I know. So they need to make sure that they get the stamp on their ballot paper before they register their vote. Okay.

All right. Now I know you don't like being called a political commentator, but if people wanted to follow up with your work or, you know, where you lay out your opinions, where can they find you in? So I have a website. It's elainemalali.e. I'm very active on Twitter and Elaine Malawi. You'll find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and I'm not very good on Instagram or TikTok, but I'm there. I have a presence and I just kind of post up my stuff there in case I might get to the younger people. I believe that's where they all hang out. Yeah, yeah, you have to do what Trump did now with the podcasts and TikTok. I'm trying to get to the younger people. Younger people come out and vote so we need she as well.

All right, well, I'll be small in my vote. Anyway, Elaine, thanks very much for today. For you.