Conspiracy theories and far-right rhetoric are being shared across Ireland in advance of Friday’s general election.
Most are focused on anti-immigrant feeling.
“I was never given the right to vote, but our own Irish government has stated that all the refugees, migrants, illegal or not, immigrants have a right to vote in our elections,” said athair_cosanta in a post on TikTok that’s received hundreds of likes.
“How does one get the right to vote when they’re not a citizen of Ireland?”
The answer is that they don’t. While foreign nationals can in some circumstances vote in some Irish elections, such as local elections, only Irish citizens and British citizens who live in Ireland can vote in the country’s general elections.
However, this doesn’t stop the conspiracy theorists, with a new report by counter-extremism think-tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue this week warning that within days of the election being announced, it had found far-right activists spreading conspiracy theories about foreign interference on sites including TikTok and Telegram.
There were claims that political parties and NGOs were registering non-citizen voters in a coordinated attempt to disenfranchise Irish voters, that ethnic minorities were being bribed or coerced into voting for establishment candidates and that the government was fast-tracking citizenship for asylum seekers in exchange for votes.
During Ireland’s last election—the local and European elections in June—ISD Global found widespread claims of ‘voter harvesting’, ‘foreign interference’, and ‘polling station irregularities’.
These included conspiracy theories alleging that the Minister for Justice had sent citizenship documents and promised passports to asylum seekers in exchange for votes, as well as claims of election rigging at polling stations and count centers.
“These terms echo the language of the ‘Stop the Steal’ conspiracy narrative deployed in a concerted effort to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” it pointed out.
And these theories are continuing to circulate, with X user Patrick Byrne this week asserting: “What happened to Ireland is a bunch of politicians were elected on machines with Chinese components running software written by the Venezuelan mafia, and were rigged from Serbia. CCP was Chairman of the board.”
The Irish government’s ability to respond to the threat posed by bad actors, disinformation and electoral interference remains ‘dangerously ineffectual’, the ISD warned.
“If their vote fails to materialize on 29 November, Irish far-right parties and candidates may use ‘foreign interference’ conspiracy theories and narratives to justify more anti-democratic strategies going forward.”
