Separate discussion for the EU election results.
After distribution of the 7th last person's votes (and assuming nobody new has been elected), the 6th last person is eliminated. Their votes don't need to be distributed though as there are now 5 candidates for 5 seats
Can someone explain to me with only grace O Sullivan's votes left in Ireland South, what happens if they're distributed and still no one meets the quota? What happens then?
There are a thousand different ways to change the process, and maybe even some that if executed properly might lead to some streamlining of the process. Ultimately though 'it takes a few days' seems like a very, very minor inconvenience in the overall scheme of things than some of the caveats that'd come with other changes to the system. I'd certainly rather it take a week than any kind of the loss of transparency or fairness that'd come with other tweaks.
I'd be in favour of raising the bar somewhat in terms of support for a candidate to get onto the ballot, but not raising the expense of it as democracy has to be accessible, we already see in Ireland how prohibitive law is due to cost (fair enough that can be a good thing in some cases).
how well do the countries (and their electorates) think the list system does for them?
i'm curious in how well they think the representatives picked end up benefitting their country - i can see the role being a sinecure for party elders who don't have to worry about being likable or electable; they can coast on their party's coat tails to an even greater extent than in ireland.
Moscow Mick can **** off and join the Russian frontlines, he doesn't represent Irish interests. Hope Ni Mhurchu gets all the transfers she needs to keep him out.
Gold.
Tens of thousands voted for Moscow mouthpieces like Wallace and Daly too.
Plenty of stupid to go around both sides of the political spectrum.
How could it not speed it up if you only have to deal with 1-5 preferences? More preferences filled in has to mean more work for the counters, for whatever % of the ballots are filled out to that.
I would think the vast majority of transfers don't go past the 6th preference.
You still have a huge number of transfers to count anyway. You're not reducing the numbers by a significant enough margin to save any real time.
The system is still representative. Why are surpluses essential for it to be representative? In the EU elections especially have marginal impact but having to process that many ballots for surplus distribution is effort and time. Let the parties manage their vote better if they're bothered about it.
Its less representative.
A redistribution of surpluses doesn't take very long. Its usually a very small number of votes that need to be redistributed. It only adds a significant amount of time when someone reaches the quota on Count #1 because all votes need to be recounted. When someone does it on transfers, only the transfers need to be considered.
Your solution then has the issue that the votes that bring a person over the line are not transferred and it logically follows that the candidate should still continue to receive transfers (which obviously makes no sense). If they cannot receive any further transfers, why do some votes transfer and others not?
And the "75-80%" of people are catered for, as they are in all the other countries where a list system operates.
You proposed 1 MEP per constituency. 75-80% of people are not represented in such a system. The figure can be as low Total / Number of candidates + 1 (as you cannot assume 100% transfers, it obviously never would be this low). Realistically, the representative figure would be 40% ish.
Why would we move to a less democratic system?
She's FF
Balaclavas? She's FF dude.
I'm sure that would be news to Ni Mhurchu!
There's no need to change a system that works. We just need the count done quicker. Hire more counters, have alternating shifts so it can be run 24/7 until we have a result. The notion of pausing the count at ten pm and picking up the next morning is a joke in this day and age.
I'd give her the seat anyways. Anything is better than Wallace , even if she answers to men in balaclavas. At least their local controllers and not based in every dictatorship in the world
Simplest way to reduce the count time would be to increase the number of constituencies to four (2 x 3 seat and 2 x 4 seat). This should bring the count time of the other constituencies into line with the current Dublin constituency. It would also reduce the geographic extent of the constituencies, reducing the much discussed disconnect between candidates and people at the other end of the current MNW and South constituencies. The downside of course would be that smaller constituencies tend to favour the larger parties and can thus be less representative overall, and of course any such move would be seen as part of a WEF/EU plot by the patriots etc.
It's probably best left as it is.
I still have her as slight favourite unfortunately. Wallace has what, about 4.5k votes on her now but with Mullins (FG) and Grace O'S (Greens) to be eliminted and a possible small surplus for Kelleher I can see her just edging it. Wallace would have liked a few more from Blighe (surprised that Funchion got as many from Blighe as Wallace to be honest). It will all depend how much Mullins and O'Sullivan transfer to Ni Mhurchu, and as government partners they may well transfer more than enough to push her ahead of Wallace. Hope I am wrong.
I would miss the long counts, it's a spectator sport at this stage. We don't miss things until they're gone.
Europe should be looking at how we do it, not the other way around.
Every single feed based scanner on the market. All of them. Absolutely all of them.
Here's a group test of them
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-sheetfed-document-scanners
This is absolutely not an issue with scanning in ballots.
There are plenty of other issues
I can't see how Ní Mhurchú beats Wallace now
The stupidity of the Irish people who fell for the far right propaganda is going to be talked about in schools in many years when they are teaching the broad concepts of Irish history.
Count 17 is in and Wallace has an almost 6000 lead over Ni Mhurcu. Will it be enough? I think not.
Ah yeah, some of the count centres are tiny tbf so you wouldn't be able to do it everywhere. But the EU ones for example are held in massive centres that could accomodate more staff imo.
There are suggestions to speed it up marginally, while still keeping the 'drama' of the unfolding of transfers etc.
I explained there'd be constituencies and a list system. The constituency candidate is elected on a single transferrable vote, same as the Presidential election here. So by your argument, is our Presidential election not democratic? If someone gets 51% of the first prefences in any election here, they are elected.
Is a list system less democratic than what we currently have? If it's such a great system how does everyone else except the Maltese manage without it?
There's a limit as to how many people can be productive working in a fairly small space. This isn't a production line.
Do you have any examples of scanners that would accommodate the MNW Euro ballot paper?
At least it gives RTE something else to report on at this time of year instead of weeks of annual leaving cert boringness …..
Explains Newstalks regular line up of political Wacky Races interviewees.
Hard to see Mullooly missing out at this stage - even if Gildernew gets ~22k from MacManus, that would put her ~3k ahead of Mullooly (assuming he gets ~1k from MacManus).
You'd expect he'll make up that 3k difference in transfers from Toibin and then say Chambers votes splits roughly evenly between the two of them leaves him ahead on the final elimination
No surpluses, just work off eliminations.
Makes no sense and means that the system isn't representative anymore. Aside from surpluses on Count #1, they don't overly slow things down.
Limit the number of the preferences to 1-5.
Likely doesn't speed up things. I doubt most people go beyond 5 preferences. The counts slow down when the bigger numbers get eliminated. These still have to be checked anyway.
Each constituency elects one MEP
Just no. This wouldn't be representative of an area. 51% of people could elect our MEPs as opposed to 75-80% of people when you have 4 or 5 seats.
This would make our system less democratic. We shouldn't compromise on that at all.
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