Almost 2,300 candidates are contesting local, European Parliament and Limerick mayoral elections today. Seventy-four candidates are contesting the European Parliament elections, this is the highest number ever. 

The Ireland South and Dublin constituencies both have 23 candidates on the ballot and Ireland North-West has a mammoth 27 candidates. Many local electoral districts also have longs lists of candidates, there are 2171 in all. 

And lucky Limerick voters will also have 15 candidates for the directly-elected mayoral position. Spare a thought for them all, the campaign was a bit lacklustre, the weather was variable and most of them will have their hopes dashed as the counts progress over the next few days.

Many of the ballot papers will be very long. Each of them will have personal information on the candidate, a photograph and a party affiliation if relevant. Candidates will be listed in alphabetical order by surname. 

At local and European Parliament elections, there are well-known ‘ballot position effects’ which give candidates at the top of the ballot paper an advantage. We see their names first and we are more likely to give them a preference. As ballot papers get longer at elections with more and more candidates, this position effect will become increasingly problematic and unfair. 

Election counts are also going to be impacted. Longer ballot papers mean that it will take more time to count the votes and finalise results. Candidate numbers also proved a challenge for broadcasters during these elections. It just isn’t possible to have informative debates with close to 30 candidates. Even with a panorama view, they wouldn’t all fit on one stage. 

Using formulas based on factors such as opinion polls, previous election results and the number of current public representatives, some candidates were included in debates, and more controversially many candidates were excluded altogether. Even then, radio and TV programmes had to develop creative formats with multiple consecutive panels for each of the European Parliament constituency debates and the Limerick mayoral race. 

Often, the front-runners in these races were spread across different panels and found themselves refuting bizarre allegations from micro-party candidates and independents. Some of the incumbent and main party candidates got off lightly, they didn’t always get a fully robust grilling on their political records and plans. Local election candidates fared worst of all, rarely getting any national coverage and having to rely almost entirely on local radio and newspapers.

Social media

The broadcasting rules might be unsatisfactory but at least there are rules. Social media platforms are the wild west of election activity. 

The EU has a voluntary code of practice for elections and the social media companies have been actively engaging with journalists and the research community to reassure everyone that there will be no repeat of the high-profile election interference witnessed during the first Trump presidential election and the Brexit vote. 

The reassurances are hollow, there are a myriad ways in which parties and candidates are still able to target political ads at specific groups of people using the opaque algorithms of the big platforms. Elections are a public activity, they should be transparent. A major challenge arises from the fact that all our online browsing is individual and private, which of course it should be. 

The platforms are supposed to ensure election integrity by requiring that information on who is paying for political adverts is clear and visible. Misinformation is also supposed to be removed promptly but we know that this does not happen in every case. 

Candidates and parties can insert ads into individual timelines and those ads are seen only by the groups of users chosen by the platform’s selection system. The ads are not subject to public scrutiny. False and misleading information can easily spread.

It cannot be refuted by the other candidates because often they do not even know that it is happening. 

Disinformation

Opinions are divided about whether targeted online candidate advertising works but we do know that disinformation does have an effect. 

And it is being spread, often by malign states such as Russia and Iran intent on disrupting and undermining established democracies. Recent elections have seen malevolent online campaigns advising voters to add specific symbols and words to their ballots which would have resulted in those ballots being invalidated. 

In South Africa last week, fake stories spread that voters had to bring their own pens to the polling station. In the US, a political consultant is facing multiple criminal charges after organising fake voice messages from Joe Biden to voters telling them that if they voted in a primary election, they would not be able to vote in the presidential election in November, so they should stay at home.

Across Europe, electoral authorities are on high alert and are being vigilant about election interference but artificial intelligence and deep fakes are making disinformation more sophisticated and ever more difficult to detect.

If you are unsure about anything related to the elections, go to the website of An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the Electoral Commission of Ireland. It is doing excellent work. There are copies of ballot papers for each of the constituencies in the European Parliament elections and you can access candidate lists for each local authority.

There are lots of videos explaining how to vote and why each vote matters so much. The information is reliable and impartial. Your vote matters, most especially at local elections, seats are won and lost on a handful of votes. Have your say, it could be critical.

• Dr Theresa Reidy is a political scientist at University College Cork. She is co-editor of Politics in the Republic of Ireland and How Ireland Voted.