1968 Irish constitutional referendums
Open-knowledge reference entry
Two referendums, related to the Third and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bills, were held in Ireland on 16 October 1968, each on a proposed amendment of the Irish constitution relating to the electoral system. Both proposals were rejected.
The Third Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland Bill 1968 define the apportionment of constituency boundaries in a manner which would have allowed a greater degree of divergence of the ratio between population and constituencies.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland Bill 1968 proposed to alter the electoral system for elections to Dáil Éireann from proportional representation by means of the Single transferable vote to the First-past-the-post voting system.
Background
Elections to Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives in the Oireachtas, are governed by Article 16 of the Constitution.
In 1959, the Fianna Fáil government of Éamon de Valera put the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill to a referendum, which proposed to replace the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV) with first-past-the-post (FPTP). The referendum was defeated by 51.8% to 48.8%, on the same day on which de Valera had won the presidential election.
John O'Donovan, a former Fine Gael TD, challenged the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1959, which had been proposed by a previous Fianna Fáil government, on the basis that there were "grave inequalities" with "no relevant circumstances to justify" them. In O'Donovan v. Attorney-General (1961), Gardner Budd held for the High Court that the Act was unconstitutional.
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