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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 4, 2016 10:23:08 GMT
For those who like the detail of STV there's some interesting analysis here: www.rte.ie/news/election-2016/2016/0303/772414-election-rules/146 TDs were in the top 3/4/5 as appropriate on first preferences. Only 12 came from behind due to transfers. Several of these were due to running mates. This 8% is just below the average for the last thirty years. No more than one TD per constituency overtook and half the cases were in Dublin. This effect was broadly party neutral with Fianna Fail suffering the most at three net losses. Fine Gael net lost 1 whilst Labour, the Greens, AAA-PBP and Independents all net gained 1. (Labour's nail biting final two seats saw them experience the effect in both directions.) The biggest leap up was in Dublin Central where Maureen O'Sullivan (a "Gregory" Independent) came from 7th place to win in a three seater. 155 had at least half a quota on first preferences. O'Sullivan had the lowest first preference quota percentage with just 0.3 of a quote. This is not a record though - the modern one appears to be Cyprian Brady (FF) in 2007 with 0.1 of a quota, also in Dublin Central. However his running mate with a huge surplus was Bertie Ahern and there was a third FF, not quite a mate, candidate as well. The Shatter Moment saw both these effects with Catherine Martin (Green) having the second lowest quota percentage (0.4) and starting in fifth place in a three seater. This also underlines just how narrow the Green comeback has been. |
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Post by andrewteale on Mar 4, 2016 10:43:42 GMT
A further point on surpluses - Thomas Hare's original system also aimed to make it clear to individual voters just which candidate their vote had elected. The secret ballot (introduced after Hare devised it) is obviously a complication but random sampling gives a strong chance of allowing the individual with a good memory to identify where their vote ended up. Random sampling maintains the numerical integrity of the vote whereas fractional transfer means the vote can be split across multiple candidates (and the IG and WIG methods can lead to hideous fractions) - STV is not immune to the "multiple votes" argument. I think you're confusing different types of number here. Random sampling maintains the integrity of the vote as an integer. Fractional transfer also maintains the numerical integrity of the vote: you have one vote potentially split between different people. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,028
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 5, 2016 16:21:44 GMT
So in the end it turns out that Labour [sic] retain enough seats to remain as an official parliamentary group only because a certain Fine Gael candidate from Longford managed to personally alienate enough people in the constituency due to his obnoxious behavior. Very Irish.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Mar 5, 2016 16:47:42 GMT
Where STV is at its most perverse is when one candidate wins something like 2 quotas and their surplus cascades down to get a running mate elected with a tiny number of first preferences. Dublin Central in 2007 was a notable example - Ahern had a surplus of about 6,000 which got Cyprian Brady (third place FF candidate) elected with less than 1,000 first preferences. It is ridiculous that someone with so little personal support can be elected. I don't think anything like that happened in this election. It has happened a few times in Northern Ireland too, with Peter Robinson getting a massive individual vote in Belfast East and pulling in one or two DUP MLA's on the coat tails. The Scottish example that immediately sprung to my mind (shows you what kind of strange mind I have!) was Baillieston ward in Glasgow in 2007. John Mason (now an MSP) polled 3199 votes (30.8% ~ 1.5 quotas) where his running mate polled just 250 (2.4%) first preferences. So from 8th place the 2nd SNP candidate got elected in a 4-seat ward. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 5, 2016 17:23:11 GMT
There would be an irony in FF becoming a junior coalition partner and being punished at the next poll.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2016 17:24:11 GMT
There would be an irony in FF becoming a junior coalition partner and being punished at the next poll. They could never be punished enough. |
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Post by finsobruce on Mar 5, 2016 17:42:56 GMT
So in the end it turns out that Labour [sic] retain enough seats to remain as an official parliamentary group only because a certain Fine Gael candidate from Longford managed to personally alienate enough people in the constituency due to his obnoxious behavior. Very Irish. But quite wonderful in its own way....  |
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Richard Allen
Banned
Four time loser in VUKPOTY finals
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Post by Richard Allen on Mar 5, 2016 17:50:00 GMT
There would be an irony in FF becoming a junior coalition partner and being punished at the next poll. It would require a degree of principle that FF don't come close to possessing. |
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 6, 2016 23:49:18 GMT
The only principle they have is the priority of being in government.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Mar 10, 2016 14:28:43 GMT
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare South) elected as Ceann Comhairle. So FF down to 43 voting members for this Dáil.
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Post by An Sionnach Flannbhuí on Mar 10, 2016 17:08:54 GMT
Kenny: Tá 57 Níl 94
Martin: Tá 43 Níl 108
Voting now on Adams. Obviously there will be no election today. Probably another meeting of the Dáil next week.
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Mar 10, 2016 17:33:18 GMT
Kenny: Tá 57 Níl 94 Martin: Tá 43 Níl 108 Voting now on Adams. Obviously there will be no election today. Probably another meeting of the Dáil next week. Presumably the Labour secret seven still backing Dame Enda? |
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 10, 2016 17:50:49 GMT
Yes - Labour have said they'll leave government themselves but would still vote for him.
So far the votes have been almost solely on party lines - Kenny all FG/Lab, Martin all FF, Adams all SF plus one other (there's a Sinn Fein gene pool indy). It seems the independents are keeping their powder dry.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Mar 10, 2016 19:35:46 GMT
Yes - Labour have said they'll leave government themselves but would still vote for him. So far the votes have been almost solely on party lines - Kenny all FG/Lab, Martin all FF, Adams all SF plus one other (there's a Sinn Fein gene pool indy). It seems the independents are keeping their powder dry. Is anyone goining to kill Kenny? |
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right
Conservative
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Post by right on Mar 11, 2016 5:30:23 GMT
The Shatter Moment saw both these effects with Catherine Martin (Green) having the second lowest quota percentage (0.4) and starting in fifth place in a three seater. This also underlines just how narrow the Green comeback has been. I noticed that too. There is something of a tradition of the Greens being very transfer-friendly and winning seats with very low first preference votes. Eamon Ryan's result in Dublin Bay South was similar to Martin's in Rathdown - he started with 4,529 first preferences and after seven stages of counting was elected with 8,788. By contrast, Fine Gael's Eoghan Murphy, also elected on Count 7, gained less than 1500 votes, going from 6,567 to 8,023. Where STV is at its most perverse is when one candidate wins something like 2 quotas and their surplus cascades down to get a running mate elected with a tiny number of first preferences. Dublin Central in 2007 was a notable example - Ahern had a surplus of about 6,000 which got Cyprian Brady (third place FF candidate) elected with less than 1,000 first preferences. It is ridiculous that someone with so little personal support can be elected. I don't think anything like that happened in this election. It has happened a few times in Northern Ireland too, with Peter Robinson getting a massive individual vote in Belfast East and pulling in one or two DUP MLA's on the coat tails. It's anomalous but it's far less prevalent than the FTP phenomena "you can put up a donkey with a red rosette in this seat and they'll get elected". STV can be attacked for a lot of things but non descript MPs coming in on party coat tails is minor compared to FTP or list systems. |
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Richard Allen
Banned
Four time loser in VUKPOTY finals
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Post by Richard Allen on Mar 11, 2016 10:44:29 GMT
And surely the point is that we don't know how popular Brady was or wasn't, only that he wasn't as popular as Ahern who always topped the poll well over quota and then transferred significant surpluses to his party colleagues.
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 11, 2016 18:36:00 GMT
When a party (or indy group) stands more than one candidate there are two strategies they can follow. One is to pile up the vote on the lead candidate which keeps them safe (especially helpful if they're a senior party figure and/or the representative at another level) but risks leakage in transfers that can result in less seats (Peter Robinson has been particularly bad at this but he's far from alone in Northern Ireland). There's also the question of what order is recommended to voters - there have been some nasty incidents in successive elections in Dublin Central over which FF candidate got the official recommendation of the Ahern machine.
The other is the vote balancing strategy which the Healy Raes were aiming for but haven't perfected yet. A lot of party TDs will openly say to interviewers at counts how they divided up the constituency hence their own vote was reduced due to giving over a town or suburb for a colleague to campaign in. The result is often good tactical voting that keeps several in the count long enough to absorb transfers.
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Post by An Sionnach Flannbhuí on Mar 12, 2016 21:18:18 GMT
What we have seen is a fortnight of phoney war, with a few shots over heads (Shane Ross talking about Kenny being a political corpse about the only significant shot). Almost no Indy was going to vote for anyone at this round; not enough given, not enough talk, and everyone knows FF/FG coalition makes sense but doesn't want to say it.
We've also seen a majority of TDs almost scared of government, looking ahead to the next election (whether it's in 5 months or 5 years) and hoping and praying they won't be in government, so they can reap the electoral dividend of blaming some other sod for the mess. Look what the biggest majority in the history of the state brought FG/Lab - who can blame them?
It is just lucky no one looks at Ireland the way they looked at the UK in 2010, where it was panic stations a Government wasn't formed the next Monday morning. Longford-Westmeath didn't finish the count til Wednesday after.
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 12, 2016 21:37:52 GMT
I think it helps that Ireland comes with a more formal timetable for the change of government that allows everyone to catch their breath. The UK's tradition of changing the PMs circa Friday lunchtime isn't great and does actually ramp up expectations and cries of squatter - for all the abuse heaped on Brown and Heath, they left Downing Street sooner than some absolutely clear cut cases (e.g. MacDonald in 1924) and recent years have seen counts going on into Friday afternoon or even Saturday.
But also Ireland has a long run of hung Dails, coalition governments and minorities propped up by pork gombeens with a lot of the shock when nobody can form a majority having already been gone through in 1989 and 1992. So there are already some clear expectations of what will actually happen rather than the chaos of unfamiliarity.
Finally in 2010 there was a massive market scare which really wasn't encouraging for experimenting with minority governments and rag tag coalitions.
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Post by An Sionnach Flannbhuí on Mar 12, 2016 21:59:27 GMT
I think it helps that Ireland comes with a more formal timetable for the change of government that allows everyone to catch their breath. The UK's tradition of changing the PMs circa Friday lunchtime isn't great and does actually ramp up expectations and cries of squatter - for all the abuse heaped on Brown and Heath, they left Downing Street sooner than some absolutely clear cut cases (e.g. MacDonald in 1924) and recent years have seen counts going on into Friday afternoon or even Saturday. But also Ireland has a long run of hung Dails, coalition governments and minorities propped up by pork gombeens with a lot of the shock when nobody can form a majority having already been gone through in 1989 and 1992. So there are already some clear expectations of what will actually happen rather than the chaos of unfamiliarity. Finally in 2010 there was a massive market scare which really wasn't encouraging for experimenting with minority governments and rag tag coalitions. Great, but 12 days where Kenny wanders off to Brussels and no independent changes tack at all - it's all a sign of a phoney war and "We'll come back to it when we want to". In the case of the Healy Raes they had funerals to go to. And every TD had posters to take down. For Dublin members, it's different. Not all TDs are returned from Dublin. |
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