Presidential Nomination Discussion

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809057#Comment_123809057

'Get to Council HQ'?

There's a reason why we have polling stations in every local area - so that everyone can get to vote.

This is just running two elections, a solution to a non-existent problem.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808380#Comment_123808380

It is changing one of the routes from:

• Decisions made by democratically elected people who voters can hold accountable for those decisions

to:

• Decisions made by unelected people with no accountability whatsoever.

Very very strange for any democrat to think that that can be an improvement.

The whole doing down of "organised politics" is not only populist nonsense, it is dangerous populist nonsense and feeding into the current atmosphere where politicians are vilified just because they are polticians. SF have had a big part in this with their constant vitriolic personalised attacks and their shameful behaviour in our parliament.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808566#Comment_123808566

I don't mind the current process, but if it was to be expanded I can see 2 obvious approaches:

1. Change the council route from the current approach of 4 councils to be a similar breakdown as the oireachtas route. You need around 8.5% of the oireachtas members to nominate you, so you could have a similar number of councillors to nominate (around 80ish).
2. Leave the existing routes alone and add a new route where a number of public nominations are needed to get onto the ballot. The limit needs to be a significant number, and some sort of process is obviously needed to verify the nominations. I don't know what the limit should be, but it would need to be in the 1000s I'd think.

I'd also have the date of the election set well in advance, longer than we had for this election, so people know when to have their ducks in a row.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809086#Comment_123809086

Decisions made by democratically elected people who voters can hold accountable for those decisions

How exactly do, I, in Monaghan, hold Dinny, an independent TD from Waterford 'accountable' for nominating somebody???

Decisions made by unelected people with no accountability whatsoever.

The ultimate 'decision' is made by the unelected.

There is no diminution of 'organised politics' proposed here. Calm down.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123808838#Comment_123808838

The whole Citizens' Assembly thing has long run its course, it was becoming ridiculous. I'm glad that no more are proposed.

Let's face it, it was a useful piece of "insulation" for politcians who were too cowardly to unglue themselves from the fence and have an open, honest and informed debate amongst themselves about abortion.

"Hey, abortion on demand wasn't our idea, it came from the Citizens' Assembly" 🙄

But that issue was decided once and for all (as far as our Constitution is concerned) seven whole years ago. There was no need for any of the subsequent ones and they did not serve any useful purpose.

We had a CA on a Dublin Mayor. We still have no Dublin Mayor. Wikipedia:

The assembly outlined a case in favour of reforms to local government in Dublin which were required, it argued, to significantly improve services in the city and county of Dublin.

That was in 2022. What's happened? Nothing. It's shameful that we asked citizens to give up their free time in good faith on what turned out to be a fool's errand.

The ones which led to the last two referendums were a spectacular waste of everyone's time, the recommendations were not followed and between bad wording and the desire to kick the government, the referendums failed.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809130#Comment_123809130

Francie, really?

You hold your councillors accountable for what they do, and the people of Waterford or wherever hold their councillors accountable.

The exact same as we do with TDs.

The ultimate 'decision' is made by the unelected.

Yes, on polling day people making decisions by themselves on behalf of themselves. That is a completely different thing.

You are proposing a selection committee which makes decisions on behalf of the whole country, with no democratic input into that committee and no accountability whatsoever.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809189#Comment_123809189

You said I could hold somebody accountable for nominating a candidate. I can only hold a limited number of people accountable in actuality.

This is for nominating somebody to a 'non-political' office. Why would somebody nominating a candidate be held 'accountable' for nominating?

Accountability is surely delivered by the people in the subsequent election? They have the final say, if the nominee is not elected, that is it.

Next election a different panel nominates again.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809081#Comment_123809081

It is not a vote or election. Its a nomination process. This is why you don't open a polling booth in every national school in the country and there is one center in each county from which you make your nomination.

You asked for a solution, I offered one.

If you want to nominate you must go to the Council HQ. The nominations unlike an election are open for a week. You could allow those with physical disabilities and older people the option of a postal nomination, but I think your now getting to the point where I becomes far easier to get to the 10K for nominations.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809446#Comment_123809446

It's not a democratic process though. Those who have cars, for example, will find it easy to participate while those who don't will find it hard to participate.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809459#Comment_123809459

I did say the process was made to be easy, as I say it is not an election it is a nomination process.

If you have no car and want to nominate then you have to go out of your way to get to the office, via public transport, taxi etc. You'd think people didn't know how to get to the county town.

You can only mark an X by one candidates name. The process could lead to numerous nominees going forward or none.

You are not electing anyone. The 10k is a quota you must get to get on the ballot.

Its not PR and its not FPTP.

If you really want you could make it the local post office. But the 10K is across all 31 local authorities for a full week should be sufficient time, for anyone considering nominating.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809219#Comment_123809219

The President is 100% a political office though...

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809516#Comment_123809516

Yes, but the office is not necessarily in the gift of political party's nor does the President need to be a politician.

Manach

My own uninformed 2c is that information is a key aspect of making a choice for such an office, so for instance any canditate that could do an AMA (ask me anything) on Boards would at least be ranked as someone who is willing to engage with the voters.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809479#Comment_123809479

It's not about being easy, it's about being fair.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809826#Comment_123809826

Ok. but then your are really just going down the road of a primary election for non party candidates.

It's fairly fair to say everyone can go to their local authority HQ over the course of 1 week. My idea makes it much harder for the candidates rather then the people taking the trouble to nominated them.

Any new arrangement must allow for some strictness on the nomination process. Otherwise you'd have over 7 candidates on election day.

I think just leave it as it is, but remember when you go to vote in a general election you are give the person your voting the right to nominate a candidate on your behalf, the same goes for local elections. (and you give TDs and Councillors the right to vote in Seanad elections also).

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809059#Comment_123809059

Who will do the monitoring?

Who will monitor the monitors?

Ultimately, democracy works because the politicians are accountable to the people.

You want to give someone, unaccountable to the people, the powers of the people. It is completely undemocratic.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809219#Comment_123809219

If they nominate somebody as odious as McGregor (or Gemma) then they most certainly should be held accountable.

You are not discussing in good faith here. It's as if you are pretending to have no understanding of how representative democracy works

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809528#Comment_123809528

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809219#Comment_123809219

Is it a political office or a non-political office.

You have offered two completely contradictory opinions on this in the last few hours.

That alone destroys the credibility of your posts.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809979#Comment_123809979

The lack of understanding of how representative democracy works is quite possible.

If I am not mistaken, Francie joined in the chorus of those following the 2020 election who believed only those who topped the poll were really elected. It was a part of the undemocratic "Mary-Lou is my Taoiseach" movement, something he kept going for a couple of years, repeatedly claiming that the previous government lacked legitimacy because they had conspired to keep SF out of their rightful place as the biggest party in government.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123809086#Comment_123809086

"The whole doing down of "organised politics" is not only populist nonsense, it is dangerous populist nonsense and feeding into the current atmosphere where politicians are vilified just because they are polticians. "

I was going to post something similar myself. It is feeding into the whole nonsense of politician being 'Them' working against us . And it is no doubt at least partly responsible for the attacks on Harris. (And no I am not a FG supporter).

The idea that we would turn over a democratic process, the local authorities nomination presidential candidates, to some type of 'Gallop' private company is either delusional or dangerous (or both).

The only positive thing about this thread is that it is keeping this nonsense out of the main presidential election thread.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810012#Comment_123810012

It is political in the sense that the president is the 'head of the state'. It is non-political in that the President is supposed to be above party politics.

Pretty rudimentary stuff really.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810052#Comment_123810052

I don't think Schrodinger's President as you have created it is in anyway rudimentary.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810025#Comment_123810025

This is utter nonsense.

I never claimed 'Mary Lou is my Taoiseach' and I never claimed that the government lacked 'legitimacy'.

It is my opinion that FF FG took the unprecedented step to coalesce to stop SF getting into power. That's just politics.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810065#Comment_123810065

Except it wasn't unprecedented, Fine Gael and others had done it many times to stop FF getting into power as the biggest party.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810138#Comment_123810138

This is as far as I go down your favourite diversionary tunnel.

FF and FG coalescing was unprecedented.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123810046#Comment_123810046

Funnily enough, I suspect the whole reason for the Citizens Assembly folks being selected by an external company is because government wanted to give the impression of being a long barge pole away from the process, and having no role in the selection.

They've actually managed to give hard liners a stick to beat them with. It would have been better to have a clear process for random selection within certain criteria, managed within the government departments, who generally get higher trust ratings that private businesses in those surveys.

Seth Brundle

I'm bemused at the recent complaints about how FG & FF weren't respecting the democratic process by blocking prospective candidates through the whip when I read about Wexford SF councillor Tom Forde who won't be in the chamber when mcgregor is giving his pitch. While I agree with him that we should not be entertaining potential candidates such as mcgregor, you cant have it both ways...

https://m.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/news/sinn-fein-councillor-says-he-has-no-interest-in-hearing-from-conor-mcgregor-ive-heard-enough-from-him/a1621050665.html

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123815510#Comment_123815510

The impression may have been given that I was blaming FF FG for this route closure.

I'm not, through no fault of their own specifically and just by independently imposing the whip, FF FG and SF can inadverently close a route to nomination.

I genuinely don't think that was an intention of those who wrote the constitution. And it shouldn't have been if it was.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123815510#Comment_123815510

He'd be better off staying in the Chamber, putting on his noise cancelling earphones, noisely browse through a broadsheet newspaper with a headline about the rape case on the front during the speech, and then jump in to ask questions about the rape case during Q&A.

Pat734

While Heather now sort of has the car headlights shining on her, I'm hearing there's going to be brighter headlights shining on a different person tomorrow. Not naming names, but a picked candidate will have some questions to answer with regards to unusual personal choices.