The Irish Government ran a fraudulent and illegal campaign for the Lisbon Treaty

I.

Under Irish law, ballot boxes are required to be delivered by members of the Gardai to the polling stations at 7:00 am on the date the election takes place.

This legal requirement applies to ALL polling in Ireland, whether elections or referendums.

On this occasion, however, the ballot boxes were delivered to the private residences of the polling/Returning Officers, 48 hours prior to the Referendum.

A number of honest Returning Officers formally objected to this BREACH OF PROCEDURE, and to the concomitant prospective breach of security, let alone of the electoral legislation.

We understand that such objections were officially dismissed out of hand on the spurious and diversionary grounds that the ballot boxes possessed no commercial value, so it would be in nobody’s commercial interest to steal them.

The central issue – that since the Irish ballot boxes were delivered 48 hours early they could be ‘stuffed’ with YES votes by returning officers, as routinely happens in places like the former Soviet Republic of Georgia – was of course not addressed.

The Irish voters were given pencils to make their mark on the ballot, even though all Irish electoral ballots are supposed to be filled with black pen.

Almost nobody was asked for any form of ID or information at the polling stations.

The ballot boxes were left unattended and moved about by many people without question.

At least one box in Cork was removed from the count centre by an unknown individual as shown in the attached video.

Many foreign nationals and others who were not legally entitled to vote voted in this Referendum. Irish Times article “Gardai to investigate suspected vote fraud”, shows seven voters registered to an empty house.

It follows that, given that the local electoral law was flouted, THE OUTCOME OF THE IRISH REFERENDUM IS FRAUDULENT AND MUST IMMEDIATELY BE DECLARED NULL AND VOID.

II.

1) The intervention of the European Commission, entailing massive expenditure of money to influence Irish opinion towards a Yes, the running of a web-site and the issuing of statements that sought to counter No-side arguments, and the advocacy of a Yes vote by Commission President Barroso and other Commissioners and their staffs during visits to Ireland. This is unlawful under European law, as the Commission has no function in relation to the ratification of new Treaties, something that is exclusively a matter for the Member States under their own constitutional procedures;

2) The part funding of the posters and press advertising of most of Ireland’s Yes-side political parties by their sister parties in the European Parliament, even though it is illegal under Irish law to receive donations from sources outside the country in a referendum and even though, under European law, money provided by the European Parliament to cross-national political parties is supposed to be confined to informational-type material and to avoid partisan advocacy;

3) The Irish Government’s unlawful use of public funds in circulating to voters a postcard with details of the so-called “assurances” of the European Council, followed by a brochure some time later containing a tendentious summary of the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, as well as other material - steps that were in breach of the 1995 Irish Supreme Court judgment in McKenna that it is unconstitutional of the Government to use public funds to seek to obtain a particular result in a referendum;

4) The failure of the country’s statutory Referendum Commission to carry out its function under the Referendum Act that established it of explaining to citizens how the proposed constitutional amendment and its text would affect the Irish Constitution. Instead the Commission’s Chairman, Judge Frank Clarke, turned the Commission into an arm of Government propaganda, while the judge indulged himself in various “solo-runs” on radio and in the newspapers, giving several erroneous explanations of provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, even though this was quite beyond his powers under the Act;

5) Huge expenditure of money by private companies such as Intel and Ryanair to advocate a Yes vote, without any statutory limit, in possible breach of Irish company and tax law, and undoubtedly constituting a major democratic abuse.

6) Breaches by the Irish broadcast media of their obligation under the Broadcasting Acts to be fair to all interests concerned in their coverage of issues of public controversy and debate. Newstalk 106, owned by Mr Denis O’Brien, a committed supporter of the Yes side, was quite shameless in its partisanship on its current affairs programmes.

---------------

References: http://www.nationalplatform.org/ http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94119
http://www.dublincity.ie/YourCouncil/LocalElections2009/Documents/LocalElectionsRegulations1995consolidatedFeb09.pdf - Local Elections Regulations 1995 -2009
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/plweb-cgi/fastweb?state_id=1254787096&view=ag-view&numhitsfound=7&query_rule=%28%28$query3%29%29%3Alegtitle&query3=Electoral%20Act,%201992&docid=48488&docdb=Acts&dbname=Acts&dbname=SIs&sorting=none&operator=and&TemplateName=predoc.tmpl&setCookie=1 - Irish Electoral Act 1992
http://www.worldreports.org/news/235_the_irish_referendum_outcome_is_null_and_void