2022 Seanad by-election

The only thing better that Chu failing here would be MacNeill doing worse.

Between him and Chu, they have almost all of the public profile. Sadly, I think it's hard to see anyone but Chu winning here - given the constituency and the fact that she is by far the most recognisable candidate.

The real fight here is for the wooden spoon between zero profile candidates and candidates that couldn't be more unsuited, like Bassett, to this constituency.

I would have had no idea there was a Seanad by-election happening, were it not for all of the junk mail I'm receiving from candidates in the last few days. I still don't know how if works so will have to do my research, I'll definitely vote though.

I haven't heard of any of them other than Chu, who I will not be voting for. She strikes me as highly self-serving and will jump on any "activism" bandwagon going- see her disgraceful comments about An Garda Siochana upon the unfortunate death of George Nkencho. This does not mean I think she deserves abuse of any kind, racist or otherwise.

Wow. I've just realised that it's 40 years since Hugo McNeill starred on the Irish rugby team that won the Triple Crown (when that was important) for the first time in 33 years. And there are Trinity graduates now who claim never to have heard of him??

What DO they teach them in that place? 🙄

Will probably end up voting for Clonan. His articles on security are pretty thought provoking and it's a perspective that's mostly absent within Irish politics with the exception of Gerard Craughwell and Cathal Berry.

University senators (Ronan Mullen the glaring exception) have usually been the best senators.

It's interesting that Citizen's Assemblies are used for all sorts of things (Many of which should just be legislated directly for by the Dail) however a really appropriate use for it would be a reimagining of the upper house. They could get political scientists in from all over the world to talk about the benefits of different ways of electing them them, what powers they should have and also if they are even needed. The Referendum to remove the Seanad was defeated for the most part not because people were happy to continue with the status quo but because they didn't think all of the other possibilities for the upper house had been explored. An assembly would be an ideal forum for that exploration.

@Brussels Sprout Yes it would but having an emasculated senate, or no senate, suits the government and indeed the main opposition parties so it's not going to happen, turkeys don't usually vote for Christmas.

Playing Devil's Advocate here but do we actually want a strong Senate? The reason I ask is because the USA has a strong Senate and it's a factor in the constant partisan gridlock that they have over there where the stars need to align before they can pass any meaningful legislation.

Are there any example of countries that have two strong houses of parliament where it doesn't end up in legislative gridlock?

What should an Upper House be tasked with that cannot currently be done by the lower house?

The Panels idea only works if the electorate is also from those sectors - as the nominating bodies will nominate anyone at the behest of the parties who then control the bulk of the electorate.

This really hasn't been the case since the rural town councils were dissolved. DCC has a lot of councillors which extensively corrects for that and many rural councils have less than the 40 that non-DCC councils can have.

Quota in DCC ranged from 1178 to 2813 - primarily down to turnout differences.

Taking two random rural counties, in Cavan it ranges from 1345 to 1631 and in Offally 1172 to 1693

Only a few wealthy wards on DCC have a significantly higher vote per Councillor than the norm.

Some wards in County Dublin have exceptionally low quotas - 973 in Tallaght South, 831 in Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart.

Yes, I'm all for a different electorate, so long as everyone gets to vote (not currently the case) and the panels are somewhat equal in size.

Alternatively I wouldn't mind single regional electorates (such as for European elections) with a different method of election - such as quadratic voting. This is something that is difficult to explain but very intuitive once you try it. There's a great sample that you can do yourself here:

https://www.economist.com/interactive/2021/12/18/quadratic-voting

Basically it allows the voter to vote for multiple candidates but to give each of them different weights, if they choose (or they can give their entire allotment to a single candidate if they want). The main downside to this (apart from trying to explain it) is that it would almost certainly need a computer to count the votes.

I really don't think she is. McNeill or Quill probably have better chances.

She gets much more media coverage than the other candidates but that isn't as important in this race.

Immediately at close of poll at 11, so now.

It should be. Normal Seanad panels aren't as there are fractional transfers due to the tiny electorate, but the Uni seats are normal. There's ~13,000 votes here so it should be like a large council ward to count, but with no surplus calculations etc as its one seat.

edit: fractional transfers only happen on surpluses anyway so couldn't happen here, ignore that....

Ok just seeing some more tweets about why it's taking so long:

Why there may not be a tally

And when we might see some results

William Quill from the tweet above seems to have updated the tally figures in his google doc.

Based on a small number of votes (1,592) it seems fairly tight:

1. Clonan 16.2%
2. MacNeil 14.8%
3. Gaffney 14.2%
4. Chu 13.07%
5. 3 further candidates in the range 6-9% and everyone else is less than 5%

Since it's a postal vote presumably that sample is presumably more representative of the total vote than, say, a box taken from a certain polling station would be in a Dail election.

On that basis I think it's a 3 horse race. I'm writing Chu off on the basis that I don't think she's very transfer friendly and the winner will need to be given how far they all are from the 50% finish line.

Not sure how transfer friendly MacNeil is going to be either since his entire schtick appears to be "Did you know I played rugby for Ireland?". I don't think his subsequent career in Goldman Sachs is going to be much of an asset to him with this electorate.

Looking at the 2020 TCD race he fared poorly in transfers versus the left wing candidates - which is most of the rest!

On that basis I think it's going to be Clonan versus Gaffney for the seat.