Are cities over represented by politicians?

Bass Reeves

As constituency size and numbers of seats are decided by the population census's this loads numbers in favour of urban populations. This really overloads seats numbers into the larger city's due to Students and workers who are there on the night of the census but then are registered to vote in there home constituency.

Take the present European election even though 3 large urban centers are based in the south constituency and a lot of the urban commuter area is based in the northern constituency the imbalance in representation is staggering. Allowing for lower turnout the imbalance is 20%. It is hard to believe that voter registration would cause that imbalance.

For true democracy is it important that this is rebalanced and census's should also look for a registration address for voting purposes. We see in general and local election's where even allowing for lower turnout representation is unbalanced

robman60

I thought of this a while ago. Last census only my parents were home, yet all of us have the vote there. The university population definitely skews it, without good reason really.

Donald Trump

Bass Reeves wrote: »

As constituency size and numbers of seats are decided by the population census's this loads numbers in favour of urban populations. This really overloads seats numbers into the larger city's due to Students and workers who are there on the night of the census but then are registered to vote in there home constituency.

Take the present European election even though 3 large urban centers are based in the south constituency and a lot of the urban commuter area is based in the northern constituency the imbalance in representation is staggering. Allowing for lower turnout the imbalance is 20%. It is hard to believe that voter registration would cause that imbalance.

For true democracy is it important that this is rebalanced and census's should also look for a registration address for voting purposes. We see in general and local election's where even allowing for lower turnout representation is unbalanced

It's not the same as supporting your county in the GAA. You should be represented where you move somewhere and the representative for that area should represent you and that area(even if you are from Leitrim, they are not supposed to discriminate).

Those students etc. should be registered where they live not where they were born. They should be voting where they live. Yes they might move home after a few years but they will be replaced by others.

In your example, you talk about people commuting. But if they are commuting, then they are living (and probably registered) outside of the urban centre. So perhaps I misunderstood that point

johnnyskeleton

For the European elections I dont see why a national list system couldnt work, with all 11/13 seats to be filled and each party can run as many candidates as they think they might need.

VinLieger

Bass Reeves wrote: »

As constituency size and numbers of seats are decided by the population census's this loads numbers in favour of urban populations. This really overloads seats numbers into the larger city's due to Students and workers who are there on the night of the census but then are registered to vote in there home constituency.

Take the present European election even though 3 large urban centers are based in the south constituency and a lot of the urban commuter area is based in the northern constituency the imbalance in representation is staggering. Allowing for lower turnout the imbalance is 20%. It is hard to believe that voter registration would cause that imbalance.

For true democracy is it important that this is rebalanced and census's should also look for a registration address for voting purposes. We see in general and local election's where even allowing for lower turnout representation is unbalanced

Can you show some numbers on this? Not sure where you are getting this 20% from and as someone else pointed out if students are registered where they were born and not where they are living thats their fault and not something we should be adjusting for. Maybe people should need to prove and confirm their addresses every few years to keep the register as accurate as possible.

VinLieger

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

For the European elections I dont see why a national list system couldnt work, with all 11/13 seats to be filled and each party can run as many candidates as they think they might need.

Ive never seen a good argument for list systems over PR-STV, people should be allowed vote for the politician they prefer because its far more representative and democratic.

Bass Reeves

VinLieger wrote: »

Can you show some numbers on this? Not sure where you are getting this 20% from and as someone else pointed out if students are registered where they were born and not where they are living thats their fault and not something we should be adjusting for. Maybe people should need to prove and confirm their addresses every few years to keep the register as accurate as possible.

If you look at the number on the register of elector's you get an idea of the excess representation in cities. In the European election in Dublin there is an MEP to every 220k on the register, in South constituency there is 280k on the register per MEP and in the Northern constituency there is 305k elector's on the register per MEP. When you allow me a lower register on amount urban area's the difference is staggering. When you consider that the Southern constituency has three large cities the difference in representation is staggering. The census decides the number of seats allocated to any given area the number on the register of elector's is I'm material it just give you an entitlement to vote in an certain constituency.

Cities are much more likely to have transient citizens than other area's. This gives them a higher level of representation than they are entitled to. Business people many be on location to attend meeting the following day, people who are catching flights, attending social events in cities such as sport or entertainment events. However because Dublin is large city that sucks so much economic, entertainment, sporting and social activity it always has transient citizens in it which skews it representation at national and European level. This is really start in the figures between it and the Southern constituency

When you look at the numbers on the register there is often a 30-50% difference in quota in similar seated constituency at national level The Government already allows for the fact that lots of Students and younger worker who have not fully relocated to there place of work or moved arranged to vote there. Is it not time that this I'm balance is corrected and allow for true democratic choice.

Donald Trump

Bass Reeves wrote: »

If you look at the number on the register of elector's you get an idea of the excess representation in cities. In the European election in Dublin there is an MEP to every 220k on the register, in South constituency there is 280k on the register per MEP and in the Northern constituency there is 305k elector's on the register per MEP. When you allow me a lower register on amount urban area's the difference is staggering. When you consider that the Southern constituency has three large cities the difference in representation is staggering. The census decides the number of seats allocated to any given area the number on the register of elector's is I'm material it just give you an entitlement to vote in an certain constituency.

Cities are much more likely to have transient citizens than other area's. This gives them a higher level of representation than they are entitled to. Business people many be on location to attend meeting the following day, people who are catching flights, attending social events in cities such as sport or entertainment events. However because Dublin is large city that sucks so much economic, entertainment, sporting and social activity it always has transient citizens in it which skews it representation at national and European level. This is really start in the figures between it and the Southern constituency

When you look at the numbers on the register there is often a 30-50% difference in quota in similar seated constituency at national level The Government already allows for the fact that lots of Students and younger worker who have not fully relocated to there place of work or moved arranged to vote there. Is it not time that this I'm balance is corrected and allow for true democratic choice.

It's amazing that all of these transient people catching flights and attending social events in the cities are coming in completely from rural areas. And that, on census night, no person from any city is outside his or her city.


A census is a snapshot in time. If it is your point that it is organized deliberately to be conducted on a specific time when there are abnormally high levels of these then perhaps you would have some sort of point, but that is not the case. If there are 100k people passing through Dublin airport today, there will likely be about 100k people passing through it next Saturday.


Lets take the converse of your argument. Suppose you have university towns like Galway, or even Maynooth. Lets strip out all the students from Maynooth and also all the people who are working in Intel, living there but head back to Mammy and Daddy once a month. So what do you have now? Maybe say 20% of the population that is living there, availing of services and resources there, are not counted.



You argument about cities for MEP are contradictory. Because you say that cities are over represented. And that South is underrepresented but that it has three large cities.