Speculation was growing in Leinster House last night that today's count to fill 43 of the 60 seats in the new Seanad could run into early difficulties over voting procedures.
Senior sources said that the ballots of seven voters - five Labour and two Fine Gael - had not been accompanied by the necessary form of "declaration of identity" which is furnished to the voter by an authorised person.
The counting of votes for the two university panels and the five vocational panels is due to get under way in three venues in Dublin today.
Ballot papers from councillors, TDs and senators entitled to vote for candidates on the vocational panels are to be counted in Leinster House, but it is expected that should administrative errors come to light when the boxes are opened the outcome will be delayed.
Each voter is provided with five ballot papers, one in respect of each of the five panels, and all papers must be returned by registered post in an envelope together with the declaration of identity.
According to sources, the reported errors are understood to have occurred in one of the Dublin council areas. The Clerk of the Seanad, Ms Deirdre Lane, declined to comment on the matter.
Labour would lose most heavily in the event of the ballot papers of these seven being declared spoilt as the party has just five candidates in the field. The omission of five Labour ballot papers would in effect amount to a net loss of 25 votes for the party's candidates.
Meanwhile, it emerged that returns from the University of Dublin and the National University of Ireland for the six university seats are showing a downward trend. Dublin University, with an electorate of 31,251, had received just 12,083 returns from graduates by last night.
The previous election returned a vote of around 50 per cent.
Returns from the 93,000strong NUI electorate were running at less than the 1992 figure of 30 per cent. Summer holidays were blamed for the low turn-out. The results of the university panels should be known this evening.