Is there any party or person worth voting for in modern-day Irish politics?

Capt'n Midnight

“[Ford said] ".. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur. "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going in for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.”

― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Thanks to PR you can leave one name blank on your ballot paper and vote for everyone else ahead of them.

Ginger83

We are not going to bother voting, waste of time and diesel. They're all the same.

satguy

A whole lot of the top FG and FF TD's only made past the post on count 5 or 6 in the last GE. Guys that would have been expected to top the poll.

So it would seem, voters are using their votes smarter,, and TD's voters thought were worth a vote, topped the polls. In the next GE, expect poll toppers to bring a running mate with them.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119697#Comment_121119697

You are showing ignorance of STV.

you don't top the poll if you want to get a running mate in

SF are going to deeply regret pushing this line when some of their big names scrape in due to vote management

satguy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119709#Comment_121119709

Your bang on,, a lot of FG and FF TD's had running mates, in most constituencies if not all. And many of them only scraped through.

I don't think any SF TD's had a running mate, in fact, I can't think of any constituency that had more than 2 SF candidates, off the top of my head.

But if FG and FF have been doing it for years,, Maybe others might give it a go at the next GE.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119697#Comment_121119697

You can top the poll and still only get elected on 5th or 6th count or more.

The first few counts are usually the elimination of the no-hopers.

For some reason this has been a major SF talking point since the last election. Their tune will rapidly change when they get running mates in in the last counts in the next election.

satguy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121124041#Comment_121124041

I don't think any SF TD's had a running mate, in fact, I can't think of any constituency that had more than 2 SF candidates, off the top of my head.

But most constituencies had a main FF or FG runner, plus a running mate, and it seemed to do them no harm in most cases ..

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119376#Comment_121119376

What solution is there in idolising a 100 year old revolutionary who never had to govern a nation? While suggesting spoiling your vote will have no quantifiable effect on things whatsoever - in fact it has the opposite, given that lack of impact. Your views and vote are literally ignored.

Peregrinus

The indicator of disengagement with politics is not spoiled votes; it's turnout. People who care enough about political issues to be angry will find someone they can vote for; there is no shortage of protest candidates. And they will realise the nihilism involved in caring about political issues but refusing to exercise the political power they have as voters.

marno21

This mornings Irish Times poll has Independents/others at 20%, tied with FF and 2% ahead of FG. SF miles ahead in 34%.

There seems to be a growing cohort of people who feel politically homeless going by that level of support

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119753#Comment_121119753

Donegal, Cavan-Monaghan, Dublin Midwest, Louth, all elected two SF TDs in 2020

zell12

Not voting is the worst solution. Always vote, and use the full ballot paper effectively. We're blessed with our PR voting system

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121167564#Comment_121167564

In other words willing to vote for any local gobdaw who promises to 'fix the road'?

We really do get the parliamentarians we deserve...

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121168146#Comment_121168146

That is true, but this is a survey of first preferences, and the Gobdaws usually squeak in towards the end of the count on third, fourth or lower preferences, or get rejected before the third count.

I think that anyone who gets less than 5% of a quota (after initial surpluses are redistributed) should be eliminated. They are most unlikely to pull up the required votes, and failing to get enough first pref votes should be a killer..

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121168343#Comment_121168343

All this does is to devalue your vote — your one vote, Sam — by reducing the value of your transfers. It reduces the power of voters and enhances that of established parties, in order to raise barriers to less established parties. This is, in a small way, the same defect as characterises FPTP. It's a lousy idea.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121183387#Comment_121183387

How does it dilute my vote?

If the quota is say, 5,000, then candidates that fail to get 250 first preference votes cannot be considered serious contenders. Now they may be local one issue candidates or just cranks making a protest, but they will be eliminated in the first few counts, and my vote continues o its merry way as if they were eliminated on the first few counts. In no way does it impact any other candidate - it just speeds the count without affecting the result.

Now maybe the threshold could be 1% of quota, but the basic idea does not impinge on the candidate as they will be eliminated anyway.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121183697#Comment_121183697

It's not true to say that your proposal will speed the count without affecting the result. If you eliminate a candidate on the first count, then obviously the second and subsequent counts will unfold differently. It may not make any difference to the eventual result. On the other hand, it may. And indeed that seems to be your intention; you express concern about "Gobdaws usually squeak[ing] in towards the end of the count on third, fourth or lower preferences"; your concern is the ones who get elected, not the ones who get eliminated.

Your proposal is that first preference votes should have greater value than second or subsequent preference votes (because in your system first preference votes are effective to keep candidates in the race while second, etc, preference votes are not). But you don't achieve this by giving first preferences a greater value than they currently have. Rather, you give lower preferences a lower value than they currently have. So, yeah, you are diminishing the value of the vote.

The whole point of the STV system is to accord as nearly as possible equal value to each voter's vote throughout the process. Under the current rules, you have one vote, it will count for only one candidate, and it will have the same value for that candidate regardless of whether your effective preference is your first, your tenth, or any other preference. You're attacking that principle by giving diminished value to second and subsequent preferences.

Under the present system if, at the last count, Olé F'tang F'tang Biscuit-Barrel from the Monster Raving Loony Party beats Mr Sober Serious from the Serious & Sober Party for the last seat, that is because more voters prefer Olé to Sober than the other way around. You're trying to rig the system so that the preferences of voters as between those two candidates are disregarded and Sober gets the seat, despite the fact that a majority of voters prefer Olé.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121184033#Comment_121184033

I take your point, but it is very unlikely that a candidate with a tiny vote being eliminated earlier than otherwise would actually make any difference to the final outcome. Vote management by large parties might be affected though, so maybe the current system is better than my suggestion.

There is a point that needs to be clarified. The surplus transferred is normally the last to arrive on a pile. So my first preference sits at the bottom of the pile and never gets transferred because my candidate is destined for great things. But another voter, who votes for many no hopers will have a vote that travels across many piles. Now that could affect the result, particularly if my candidate has a large surplus when elected. The initial randomising of votes does reduce this a bit, but not by a lot.

However, there is a point that the candidate may not qualify for expenses, and that might matter (to the candidate).

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121184140#Comment_121184140

I take your point, but it is very unlikely that a candidate with a tiny vote being eliminated earlier than otherwise would actually make any difference to the final outcome.

So why bother doing it?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121184292#Comment_121184292

Because it can add about four counts when there is a collection of low scoring but close no-hopers each needing an elimination each.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121185762#Comment_121185762

So what? Anything worth doing is worth doing properly and all that.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081987#Comment_121081987

Esp rural ones. Centre left or centre right and usually of a conservative mindset.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121185762#Comment_121185762

This already happens. Two or more candidates with negligible numbers of votes can be eliminated in a single count.

Imagine a hypothetical election where, after the first count, nobody has yet reached the quota (so we don't have to complicate our example by worrying about the distribution of surpluses) and the bottom of the table looks like this:

. . . [Eight candidates with respectable numbers of votes]

Candidate 9: 1,000

Candidate 10: 500

Candidate 11: 200

Candidate 12: 50.

Clearly, distributing candidate 12's votes, even if they all go to candidate 11, cannot put candidate 11 ahead of candidate 10. If no candidate at the top of the poll is within 50 votes of the quota, distributing candidate 12's votes also cannot elect anybody and so produce a surplus for distribution. So if, after count 1, we just distribute candidate 12's votes, then it is inevitable that after count 2 we will be distributing candidate 11's votes; nobody will have exceeded the quota, and candidate 11 will be at the bottom of the poll. Nothing is served by deferring the inevitable elimination of candidate 11 so, in this circumstance, the returning officer will eliminate both candidate 11 and candidate 12 after count 1, and count 2 will consist of the distribution of 250 votes, not 50 votes.

But hold on! By exactly the same reasoning, distributing the votes of both candidate 11 and candidate 12 cannot possibly put candidate 10 ahead of candidate 9. If it also cannot elect anyone - i.e. if no-one is within 250 votes of the quota - then we can eliminate candidates 10, 11 and 12 after count 1, and distribute all their 750 votes in count 2.

And so on. You can assemble as many low-polling candidates as you like until you have a block of votes large enough to elect someone, or to make a material difference to the running order of the remaining candidates, and you can eliminate them all in a single count.

Tl;dr: The returning officer can - and does - eliminate a group of candidates in one count where it is mathematically impossible for this to produce a different election outcome than eliminating them singly in successive counts.

The key point is that the threshold for being "group-eliminated" in this way is not failing to reach some fixed percentage of the quota or some fixed number of votes chosen because it's reckoned that, in most cases, it's probably not going to affect the eventual outcome. It's having less than the minimum number of votes that, in the particular case, is mathematically capable of affecting the eventual outcome.

tesla_newbie

I’ll be voting for my closest TD geographically , he’s an independent and while he won’t set the world on fire, he is a hard worker and always available, I have no one to vote for after that

thinkabouit

Why everybody dismisses Independents as a waste of time is beyond me. A Dail of People working for their local interest’s can surely only be a good thing.

Institutions like our government party’s will never ever change unless public opinion does. And yes FFG need a right good kick in arse this time.

BUT, we aint gonna change anything or get what we all want until the way policies are developed or the same thinking changes.

https://youtu.be/lLSMBt_snwc?si=mS-DIuwCWv_39uvL

Sleepy

Luckily we have PRSTV in this country so you don't actually need to like any of the candidates or parties on your ballot paper, you can simply start at the bottom with the one you hate most and work on up the ballot until the least objectionable candidate gets your vote.

I'd agree with the OP to an extent though. I've never in my life got to vote for someone I actually thought would make a good TD/Minister/Taoiseach. Labour would probably be the closest thing to my natural home in Irish politics but "lunatic, rabid feminist" is a good description of Bacik and I won't vote for the party as long as she's leader. I'll probably end up going with SD's in the hope they end up working in coalition with the bigger players and end up consuming whatever's left of the Labour Party after what's likely to be their worst electoral performance ever.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121200786#Comment_121200786

The Dail isn't supposed to be a glorified county council, that's why

thinkabouit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121200977#Comment_121200977

What’s it supposed to be then?

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121201009#Comment_121201009

The National Legislature.

Independents are worse than an utter waste of time, they are generally massive roadblocks to getting consensus to achieve anything. I have some time for the attempt at the Independent Alliance to at least get broadly similar-minded independents to at least attempt to work together. But the general free for all mess of independents is a disaster.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121201009#Comment_121201009

A national consensus; but independents holding the national government hostage over some local amenity is whatever the opposite of NIMBYism is. For sure sometimes those facilities are required entities the national government ignored - but it can too often result in the tail wagging the dog.