Election Thread - Dublin West - SEE MOD NOTE IN POST 1

Polar101 wrote: »

Last time his running mate was Catherine Noone, wonder what happened to her?

Edit: actually just noticed she was running in Dublin Bay North and didn't do great.

Noone is your definition of a carpet bagger who would run for anything so she could later get her senate seat. I think she won 1 local election in her entire life and her parliamentary assistant Noel Rock actually managed to become a TD (in a heavily working class constituency, which he lost out in this time).

Currie is a local councillor and daughter of a former local Dublin West TD (and yeah, rolls eyes at the family business of politics) so she has roots here. Getting her profile up in a run at the general is doing her duty for the party and will give her strong billing to be the next FG nominee for the constituency after Leo the Lion retires from the circus for his nice EU or WHO or something job.

As for Ruth Coppinger losing the final seat to the greens, at least you know the Green Party has constructive policies it wants implemented. I can’t see the socialists and their various shades actually going into government and then staying there without a big split over some minor point of Marxist / Trotskyite difference on the price of fish a few weeks in. They’re irresponsible student politicians who refuse to grow up and aren’t as fun to read about as Peter Pan. Meanwhile the Green Wave will either go into government or move whoever does to implement some seriously needed policies on climate change as they look over their shoulder at the votes available to people who take the issue of environment seriously.

I wonder would it grow even ex-boundary changes given the amount of new housing going in to D15.

D7 will help Labour and left wing parties.

They actually got rid of a constituency in Dublin when they merged Dublin North Central with Dublin North East to make Dublin Bay North.

They tinker with the boundaries too often imo. I know people who've been to-ing and fro-ing between two Dublin constituencies for about 5 elections.

KGLady wrote: »

And they are STILL denying it and saying its baseless rumours and calling us liars. It pisses me off, sleeveen enough to lie to voters, and then call us the liars after the fact. Their double standards are sickening.

A number of friends in my Whatsapp group got the knock so certainly not a rumor but an absolute strategy.

Is there any way to find out what the tallies or vote count was for a particular box? I’d love to know how mine voted.

dtf wrote: »

This is just incorrect. Chambers increased on his 2016 percentage vote in Ladyswell, Corduff, Castaheany, Littlepace, Hartstown, and Blakestown polling stations

His Castleknock Village vote was actually down on GE2016.

Generally for most people it would look like Chambers first preference vote is almost flat and that would be regarded by most as a good day.

If looking at it in a little more details, his first preference vote was 16.5% in 2016 while this time out it was 15.8%. That seems like nothing to a casual observer but to someone like Jack who has serious future aspirations and who has been groomed to achieve them, this would annoy him and to a certain extent, concern him.

He finished third this time out, when he finished 2nd in 2016.

His first preference vote is up by 100 but the valid vote count is up from 64000 to 70000, so that's not something to find as a positive by any means because it suggests the extra turnout is not for FF.

There are many ways to look at it, but if I were Jack Chambers I would be concerned that younger voters are almost certainly not enamoured to him. Older voters certainly are and i know this from talking to some of them but they are not the base you need to be Taoiseach and yes you read that right, his goal is to be Taoiseach.

Jack will always have a seat in Dublin west, no doubt about it. It would take a lot of old people to pass on for that certainty to change but Jack is very conservative anyway and so as i see it, his future prospects will only get worse on all trends mentioned above.

Ruth will find it hard to operate with the few quid drying up and this is one way to address that. I might sound cynical but this is precisely why parties are benefical and why seperating from her colleagues before the election was a disasterous move.


https://www.thejournal.ie/ruth-coppinger-running-for-seanad-5007179-Feb2020/

Emm wasn’t Ruth a vociferous opponent of the Seanad? I seem to remember her campaigning for its abolition during the referendum.something about it being classist?

But suddenly it’s ok for her now.

Between them everyone left of the Soc Dems couldn't organise the proverbial piss up in a brewery. And thats a terrible let down for their collective constituency, who really should be the focus of all their efforts, not who gets to be the biggest maverick.

holly_johnson wrote: »

Is there any way to find out what the tallies or vote count was for a particular box? I’d love to know how mine voted.

It should be possible to get the actual count info by box.
A number of years ago the Community Voice newspaper (sorely missed!) listed results by box. It was interesting reading. I think that it should be public info. No personal info would be involved.

Slight distraction in running the country I suppose. Can't fault any sitting Taoiseach for that,.

Remind me wrote: »

Doubt Leo is climbing many ladders

Nobody should have been near climbing ladders in the weather we've had in the last two days. Downright dangerous

Remind me wrote: »

Doubt Leo is climbing many ladders

Nor any other politician.

The box-by-box count is done by the political parties themselves and not officials, so there isn't official data on a box by box basis to release.

What happens is that the first stage of a count for the staff is to unload the box and literally count that the number of ballots in the box matches the number of ballots on the paperwork from the presiding officer who manned the desk on the day of the poll. By convention the count staff do this on desks facing outward, and display each ballot facing outward. The tallymen of the political parties (who gang together and conduct the tally of votes cooperatively) then note the preference on the ballot. So effectively the count staff and the political staff are counting in different ways. The returns go back to a gaggle of people with laptops who input them into their own spreadsheets box by box. Typically they present the overall figures but keep the box by box, as this is valuable political information.

A box will represent specific areas and streets and the info there has large value in seeing trends and knowing where to campaign first and foremost. Though the info is shared among the parties and sometimes leaks out (the editor of the Community Voice was a terribly nice chap of very good standing among people of all parties and had sources for acquiring the actual box by box breakdown) more often than not the info is held closely. You've gone to all that effort to collect it - it is a significant operation, requiring typically 2x tally people per box with maybe 15+ boxes being opened at a time in a count center plus the lads on laptops etc - and any old independent candidate or blow in could take it and use it to their advantage against you.

One of the reasons political parties opposed e-voting was the perceived risk of losing box by box tallys. Of course a simple solution would be for the returning officer to note first preferences by box, but our counting system in PR-STV takes long enough as it is.

AlanG wrote: »

A key reason for there being no official box by box totals is the risk to the secret ballot. Some boxes, especially on islands and in rural areas have very few votes so it is apparently possible to work out who voted for who or at least if someone didn't vote for a particular party. It may seem extreme but the government have to be very careful about the information they release.

I was wondering about this - surely the approach of allowing a tally of an individual box would be subject to the same concerns?

Nijmegen wrote: »

Political parties control the laws governing elections. We don't have an electoral commission either, a cynic might say because it could interfere in How Things Are Done.

Given that we have one of the most representative democracies in the world and a written constitution there is very little to be cynical about. In Ireland the seat count if far closer aligned to public opinion than in many democracies. Anywhere with first past the post, a list system or a minimum national vote requirement to enter parliament is far more skewed towards the larger parties. The main issue raised with our system is that many countries would consider it too representative to make efficient decisions.

I'd imagine all supporting but I think it will fail anyway and we'll be looking at another election.

The Greens have ****ed it either way, by this public division.

Basically, we're in World War economics without the shooting. The whole show is shagged for the next 2 to 3 years. So, the Greens can either man up and take some responsibility as legislators and be involved in a programme for economic recovery that has a green tinge to it, OR, they can watch on from the wings as deals are done with the Healy Raes, Verona Murphy, Michael Fitzmaurice, Marian Harkin and a few others to make it happen and the green objectives are fecked in the bin to pay for it.

This is senior hurling lads, theres only a very slim chance of another general election in the current health emergency.