Iām voting for the 10 candidates in Limerick as follows in order of preference:
Heffernan
OāDonovan
Neville
OāDonnell
Sherlock
OāDoherty
Wall
Dillon
Cremin
Collins
By doing this, I ensure Niall Collins (FF) wonāt be getting any sort of preference from me.
In the example above, if Heffernan reaches the quota on first count (unlikely) his surplus is distributed
assume he has a surplus of 100 votes
the returning officer chooses which bundles (ballot boxes, once opened, are sorted according to no. 1 votes, and bundled together) are to be distributed
(thereās always debate around this, certain areas will favour certain candidates, etc. usually the last bundle counted are taken)
all of the surplus votes to be distributed are counted according to 2nd preference and added to each individual candidate accordingly
In the above example, my vote goes to OāDonovan (heāll need it more than Dan Neville, who should top the poll)
Iāve voted above in order to maximise the chances that Heffernan, OāDonovan and Neville get elected
The rest is just filling in the gaps
the other way of distributing votes is more common, eliminate the lowest candidate, and distribute their 2nd prefs accordingly
all these votes are re-distributed, thereās no sampling and no element of luck in which votes are chosen
Votes usually donāt matter beyond 5th or 6th preferences, since the subsequent no. of votes to be distributed are too small to change the order
I think the votes will go further this time due to the sheer number of independent candidates. Iām guessing there are more overall candidates than in recent elections, which means more eliminations and votes will go that bit further to find a home.
Decent summary from the SMH too. Bit short obviously but it sums up the conservatism of the Irish electorate fairly well. And of the political parties - particularly Labour who seemed to run away from the left wing ground that had won them a bit of support initially.
Not really, have only had a few comments in meetings about Irish cashflow and that kind of thing. The paddywhackery would be more prevalent in London in my experience. There was a half decent programme about irish immigration on ABC a few days ago. Aussie TV is generally shite so I was expecting this to be awful but was alright. Comical Leni looked even more yellow when she started asking him questions at a press conference.
Then again with Aussie banks giving 100% mortgages, loan to deposit ratios of 140%, an overvalued currency, a property bubble fuelled by immigrants renting and fully supported by a complicit media, a weak PM etc etc they are heading down the same path. Had a young lad come over the other day to fix the water heater, on about buying a second house with a pool and just increasing the loan on his current home. That kind of shit frightens me. When China stops buying the resources, Aus is fucked. The level of personal debt here is collosal.
fair enough, I assumed most transfers beyond that would be less-than-quota stuff and lads will be deemed elected eventually
your point on conservatism is also well made, there isnāt a SF candidate in Limerick and the likes of Patrickswell would be good breeding grounds for republican candidates
I assume Adare is still fresh in the mind so theyāll stick to the city
It means I donāt really have the option of a protest vote (since nobody of the 10 candidates are standing on a burn-the-bondholders platform) unless you count gombeen independents, tractor cavalcade enthusiasts and Limerickās sexiest man 1980.
But if noone reaches the quota from the first count, they just start counting the 2nd preferences from the least popular candidate up? I thought before that they often take the 2nd preferences of the last two or three candidates in the one go?
This counting and sampling is so wide open to abuse its untrue. Why didnt e-voting work again?
Literally caught the last 2 minutes of itā¦Fergal Keane was presenting it, he was with some bint who had a masters in town planning and had to emigrate from Cork to New Zealand
I might be wrong, but I think they ran a SF candidate in the last election and he fared poorly enough (I think he was from ncw). Surprised they donāt have more support around west limerick considering the IRA unit there were one of the most active south of the border.
Yeah the votes might be insignificant normally but I expect that there will be plenty of people who wonāt vote FF or FG until near the bottom and those votes might have to travel a fair way through low key candidates to make a difference to a guy with a better chance. And previously FF would be running enough candidates to keep transfers to themselves. Those will now go all over the place to anyone but FG.
Incidentally I think Labour will do better on transfers this time for that reason.
not much of it was new, but still reasonably well put together and an outside perspective is always useful
the bit from the dutch guy who resigned from anglo over lenihanās interferance was the highlight for me,
think he did an interview in the times or tribune that covers most of it.
depends on how many votes youāre talking about
no point doing a full count for some lad with only 150 votes, that wonāt be enough to elect anyone
I think they eliminate the minimum no. of candidates with sufficient transfers to provide a quota.
the principle remains that the lowest candidates are eliminated in that order.
e-voting got shot down cos there was issues with tampering / hacking
I think it was more an inability to prove it wasnāt possible than anything else
i get the feeling itās nothing that couldnāt be fixed in a few months with a bit of effort.
one advantage to e-voting is thereās no argument over surplus allocation
all votes are re-counted, and multiplied by a correction factor to provide the required surplus (i.e. if 10% of a candidateās total vote are to be re-distributed, their 2nd prefs are divided by 10)
when Nora Owen was eliminated in Malahide following their e-voting trial, she hadnāt even made it to the count centre before the result was known.