Debunked: A failed election candidate was jailed, but not for ...

THE JAILING OF a failed general election candidate has sparked claims that her imprisonment is linked to an alleged uncovering of election tampering. This is not true.

The detention of Michelle Keane, who stood for election as an independent in Kerry, was for contempt of court after she was deemed to have broken an order given by a judge in July.

This dispute, which far precedes the election, involved a court order not to post social media content about a local garda — an order Keane is alleged to have broken multiple times, including on the eve of the election.  

The breaking of the court order, Keane’s allegations about election tampering, and Keane’s subsequent imprisonment, overlap in time, which has lead to confusion about why she has been detained. 

Timeline

On the day of the election itself, Keane alleged that she saw an election worker tear out six ballots from a book before voters arrived at a community hall in rural Kerry. 

One video posted to TikTok on 10 December, the day Keane was imprisoned, features a woman speaking to camera. “Because she’s not backing down in relation to the election,” the woman says. “This is the way they’re trying to get her to back down. To me, this is false imprisonment.”

The clip was reposted to Facebook that same day with the caption: “Michelle Keane jailed (woman who reported vote malpractice).”

A video was also posted by Philip Dwyer, a far-right election candidate who stood in Wicklow and who also suggested that the general election was rigged after he failed to win a seat.

“She [Keane] appeared there in court there this morning in relation to a case she is bringing to the returning officer there, in relation to something she witnessed in a rural polling station on the night of the election,” Dwyer said.

“Disturbing, what she’s claiming she saw — in other words, she saw people she thought were rigging ballot papers.”

Comments under the video further claim that Keane was jailed after she had witnessed election tampering. “They want to put the fear in her so she back down on the possible election fraud [sic],” one comment reads.

“Trying to shut her up, obviously there using there scare tactics on her [sic],” says another.

In TikTok videos and on Telegram fringe groups, commenters were more explicit in saying that Keane was falsely jailed for “blowing the lid off the 2024 election steal”.

“It’s all a ploy to stop her unearthing election fraud,” a Telegram comment reads.

Contempt of court

Keane, an author, and a campaigner against 5G masts, runs a company selling water from streams which she claims were revealed to her by angels. 

From Knocknagoshel, Kerry, Keane came to prominence during the June local elections, garnering large online followings with regular video and social media posts.

In the November general election, she listed immigration as top of her priority list and called for deportations. Her other priorities included law reform and the release of Enoch Burke.

Burke, a teacher from Castlebar, has likewise been imprisoned for breaching a court order to stay away from a school he was fired from working at. His supporters have falsely said he was jailed for refusing to endorse “transgenderism”.

According to court reports from earlier this week, Keane was ordered at Ennis Circuit Civil Court to remove all online social media posts made against a Listowel-based sergeant, Melanie Walsh, and not to make further statements about her online.

She was accused of breaching her injunction multiple times, most recently in a Facebook post on 28 November, the day before the general election.

The breach was vehemently denied by Keane, who represented herself.

Earlier this week, both sides in this case were sent out of court to resolve the situation. When they returned, the plaintiff’s legal team said an undertaking had been drawn up and given to Michelle Keane.

It was reported that Keane refused to agree to it, saying she had not breached the interlocutory order.

Judge James O’Donohoe said he had no option but to commit her to prison for contempt.

She is due to appear at Killarney Civil Court today, but she can at any time purge what the judge held to be a contempt of court.

Multiple cases

Keane had made a video on Tuesday before her court appearances, where she said she was going to collect the list of registered electors from the Kerry Returning Officer later that day.

She then described two cases that she had in the court that day.

Neither of the cases had to do with the election, however Keane said that she was informed on polling day (29 November) about one of the cases, where she was accused of breaching a court order given in July.

“To do this to me the day of the election sums up the maliciousness, the vexatiousness of it. Political interfering in my campaign that day — running in the election — was very nasty, very ugly, and quite disgusting,” she said.

None of the videos on Keane’s TikTok account since election day say that her appearance in court was directly due to the elections.

Speaking to camera in a Make Ireland Great Again hat, she alleged that she had seen a woman working in a rural Kerry polling station take six ballot sheets from the ballot book and place them on the table.

Keane said she believed this was against the rules.

“This ballot box now is compromised, in my opinion,” Keane said in the TikTok video, posted on the day of the election.

A screenshot for Keane's TikTok The Journal The Journal

She said she had notified the Gardaí, the minister for Justice, the Electoral Commission, and the polling officer.

“Gardaí received a report of alleged election fraud in Tooreencahill, County Kerry, on Friday 29th November 2024, at approximately 9pm,” a spokesperson told The Journal.

“Enquiries are ongoing at this time.”

However, The Journal understands that a criminal investigation into the incident has not commenced.

It is not clear from the electoral acts whether the actions described by Keane would have been illegal, even if they did occur as she described. An investigation by Kerry’s Returning Officer has supposedly concluded that they do not.

In later videos, Keane mentions that the Returning Officer investigated the complaint, but was satisfied that there was no wrongdoing, which Keane said she disagreed with.

“People are saying to me: ‘Michelle, who was counting our votes? Where have all our votes gone for you?’” she asked.

Michelle Keane received 1,530 first preference votes in Kerry, with a quota of 13,083. She was eliminated on the 8th count, having accumulated 2,081 votes as transfers came in. After her elimination, eight other candidates vied for the three remaining seats.

Keane said that she had also reached out to the minister of housing and local government, as well the Taoiseach over what she had seen at the polling station.

She did not say she had a court date over the matter.

With reporting from Anne Lucey.

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