Newspapers spent vast amount of money on opinion polls, to show they have it all figured out long before the humble voters get near the ballot boxes.

But it never quite works out like that in practice – every time an election is held, there’s always a few seats that come down to a handful of votes. You might even spare some sympathy for the poor sods whose fingernails are reduced to mush by the long recounts. But what it does show is that EVERY VOTE REALLY DOES COUNT!

1997 – MICHAEL MCDOWELL VS. JOHN GORMLEY
The abrasive barrister has now reached the dizzy heights of Tánaiste and leader of the Progressive Democrats, but his journey to the top was arrested for a few years by the voters of Dublin South East. By a margin of 27 votes, they opted instead for John Gormley of the Greens. Gormley bicycled off to victory and McDowell announced that he was retiring from politics. But he changed his mind and the two men were returned comfortably to the Dáil five years later.
McDowell is now merrily back in the thick of things – he caused a minor storm by suggesting that “Deputy Gormley’s kind of people” were responsible for trashing the PD offices during last year’s Dublin riots. But of course, there’s no hard feelings about what happened in 1997.

1987 – THE SPRING TIDE GOES OUT
Dick Spring led the Labour Party for 15 years and served as Foreign Affairs minister in two governments during the 1990s. He was lucky to be there though – in 1987, the Labour chief scraped home in North Kerry by just four votes. After the near-disaster, Spring vowed never to let it happen again, and led Labour to its greatest electoral triumph in 1992. But he was ejected from the Dáil by Sinn Féin’s Martin Ferris last time around.

2002 – FREE NICKY KELLY
Poor Nicky Kelly has had enough stress in his life, after being stitched up for a crime he didn’t commit and spending several years in the slammer. But the Labour candidate was put through the ringer five years ago when he found himself neck and neck with independent Mildred Fox for the last seat in Wicklow. After a mammoth eight-day count (and some bitter rows at the polling station), Fox won the seat by just 19 votes. The experience hasn’t deterred Nicky Kelly from standing again in this year’s election.

2002 – SACRE BLEU!
A more exotic example, this, but it shows how voters can make a difference. France sent a shock wave all round Europe in 2002 when the country’s Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin lost out in the first round of the presidential election to far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen went through to the run-off against sitting president Jacque Chirac, where he was heavily beaten.
With all the fuss surrounding the result, it was often forgotten how narrow Le Pen’s victory margin had been – less than 200,000 votes. To put that in perspective, over a million Frenchmen and women voted for the hunting and fishing party. The French have just voted again, and this time Le Pen was beaten back into fourth place.