We heart corruption

gandalf

I would reckon alot of the 12 million was spent on advertising and photo shoots with at least 2 models draped off Cockroche !!!

Ignoring the whole 'students didn't get a chance to vote' (especially since I've given my opinion on it, and that I am a student who voted) perhaps it might be worth considering how students are usually quite politically active (and as many would say, naive). Even still, there are big enough memberships of the youth wings of the political parties, and due to exams these activists were unable to canvass for their respective parties, which may have dented some of the parties.

Blackjack

nlgbbbblth wrote:

1973 Wednesday
1977 Thursday
1981 Thursday
1982 (February) Thursday
1982 (November) Wednesday
1987 Tuesday
1989 Thursday
1992 Wednesday
1997 Friday
2002 Friday

Thanks. Should be no major shock to the system then to have an election on a Thursday.

Nor should it have been a huge shock that an election took place in May or June. I have great difficulty with people claiming that they could not vote because they did not bother to find out how to Register, go to the cop station or post a letter. If it was felt to be important enought to them, they really would have figured this out.

nesf

jmayo wrote:

nesf, yeah we are much different to Japan.
We are in a much worse situation. After all I don't think we have a Sony, Toyoat, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Corp. Do we?
What have we got, jobs provided by foreign multi-nationals that are about to move lower cost bases.

We don't have those companies equivalents I agree (though with the size difference it'd be damn unusual if we did). Whether or not that makes things worse here is not as obvious. Again, it is not as simple as that.

Akrasia

Tristrame wrote:

Carefull there Sir.I'm entitled to give a view without you attacking me.Whats more I gave perfectly good mathematical reasons for why your post on the turn out didnt make sense and you've came back with a personal attack.

What you did was take one word 'numbers' and interpret it out of context. I meant 'proportion'. I'm not saying you did it on purpose, and I accept responsibility for not being clear enough but your tone was very aggressive and I don't respond well to that kind of attitude.

Regarding the electoral check? What do you expect any minister of any hue to do? Go out himself and follow the people on the ground all day to make sure they have it 100% correct? Please...!

No, he should have ensured that the reforms he was overseeing were effective. He should have ensured that before someone was unilaterally removed from the register (under seemingly random circumstances), that a letter was sent to that person to inform them of the change in time for the voter to make suitable arrangements to ensure he/she was put back on. That is a common sense thing that should have been done. You act surprised that people were disenfranchised (and blame them and the administrators) but it is the only forseeable consequence of unilaterally chopping and changing the register without any consultation.

Well I don't agree that you could say it was ENTIRELY the ministers fault given that the time frame to do the check was so short.I also don't agree that you can blanket condemn the electoral check unless you have a significant problem.

It didn't do the job it was intended to do. It was supposed to clear up the register, the initial reports following polling day are of thousands of voters refused a ballot card at the place they had registered themselves.

No matter what check you do you are not going to get it 100% accurate you are relying on human error.

And a lot of that human error was made at an executive level by approving a flawed system

And While I'm here,most of that money was spent in this country so it actually contributed to the economy when the register checkers spent it in their local shops etc ...but hey I'd expect that to be lost on you as you dont agree with capitalism in the first place from your other many posts on that subject do you

No i don't
But redistributing wealth through public works is the very thin wedge of capitalism... and as has already been said, a lot of that 12 million went into the pockets of advertising companies and big media conglomorates, more than into the (rapidly disappearing) corner shops

Akrasia

Akrasia wrote:

And a lot of that human error was made at an executive level by approving a flawed system

The difficulty I have with that is that we have a lot of arguments on this thread saying people didnt have a chance to get their postal vote/onto the supplimentary register-yet the election was an inevitability.
Do you really think that there would have been a good response to a letter ?I'd agree with you that in hindsight it would have been an additional failsafe but I'd entirely disagree that it would have changed much...what with people coming in late from work or whatever and kicking the pile of letters to the side of the mat as they come in and dealing with the important ones like the bills.

Perfection is an idealistic thing.

And a lot of that human error was made at an executive level by approving a flawed system

No it wasn't.
A person had to go to the door and see who was in and decide accordingly.
This was all done at the media's and the oppositions insistance and all with a very short time to go prior to an election.
The only sure fire way of judging its effectiveness was on election day itself.
In theory it should have worked but in theory we can't eliminate human error.

nlgbbbblth

Blackjack wrote:

Thanks. Should be no major shock to the system then to have an election on a Thursday.

Nor should it have been a huge shock that an election took place in May or June. I have great difficulty with people claiming that they could not vote because they did not bother to find out how to Register, go to the cop station or post a letter. If it was felt to be important enought to them, they really would have figured this out.

no problem
have updated it with the dates.
Five of the previous ten elections took place in May or June.

1973 Wednesday 28 February
1977 Thursday 16 June
1981 Thursday 11 June
1982 Thursday 18 February
1982 Wednesday 24 November
1987 Tuesday 17 February
1989 Thursday 15 June
1992 Wednesday 25 November
1997 Friday 6 June
2002 Friday 17 May

thebman

nlgbbbblth wrote:

no problem
have updated it with the dates.
Five of the previous ten elections took place in May or June.

1973 Wednesday 28 February
1977 Thursday 16 June
1981 Thursday 11 June
1982 Thursday 18 February
1982 Wednesday 24 November
1987 Tuesday 17 February
1989 Thursday 15 June
1992 Wednesday 25 November
1997 Friday 6 June
2002 Friday 17 May

Point being? Just because every party is against young people voting yet says the contrary, doesn't mean this wasn't the time it should have changed.

I remain of the opinion that the big parties think young people voting equals votes for Sinn Fein and so always want to stop young people voting.

Lennoxschips

sorry tristrame, but FF spent 12 million of public funds on a new register and it was just as bad as the old one, if not worse. accountability is needed at the highest level for that.

OPENROAD

shamblertine wrote:

Its all about style over substance. Kenny didn't have a chance of getting in because he was too short. Just like the conservatives in england had no chance for years because they always had bald leaders.

Imo William Hague was just unlucky he became leader when he did, an excellent speaker,mind,would have made a great PM, will make an excellent member of the cabinet after the nxt election.

Sleepy

sioda wrote:

But you should not be forced to vote in a consituency that means nothing to you

Yes you should. We were electing our *national* government, not a bunch of bloody county councillors. Your attitude sums up a huge part of what's wrong with Irish politics imho. As long as we keep our politics at the parish pump we'll have corrupt and ineffective governance.

Lennoxschips

in that case, why have constituencies at all?

jmayo

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

I do not like FF/PD and what they have done to Irish politics and their lack of accountability.
I will also admit that the FG/Lab are also afraid to mention the white elephant in the corner, i.e. the Irish economy being over reliant on construction (really only residential as well).
Nobody wants to talk about the possible bad news, so FG/Lab joined the hoopla about how great economy is. Hope sells pessimism does not.

Regarding Joan Burton I think she is a waste of space and yes I will admit that FG/Lab have them as well as FF and PDs.
Have you ever watched some of the eejits that are elected, from all parties, being interviewed.

Lennoxschips

Lennoxschips wrote:

sorry tristrame, but FF spent 12 million of public funds on a new register and it was just as bad as the old one, if not worse. accountability is needed at the highest level for that.

I disagree completely.That doesnt stand up given the short time frame they had up to the election.
Of course they had to advertise it and of course they had to put fliers through letterboxes and of course they had to pay the people that called to the doors.
None of that was free.

If some other government were there,they'd have to do the same thing.
If the current one didn't do it they'd be damned aswell!

Lennoxschips

they didn't have enough time? that's their own fault, they had five years to sort it out but left it till 2006, wasted 12 million euro and generally made a mess of it. i have no problem with it costing 12 million euro (as you say, all those people who go from house to house need to be paid), but having spent the money you have to get it right.

there are no excuses.

johnlambe

spudington16 wrote:

This is ridiculous. Given the polling places were open from early in the morning til late enough at night I can't imagine anyone using exams or study as an excuse; it only takes a few minutes.

Well if it didn't make a difference, why are they complaining about it?
http://www.petitiononline.com/Thursno/petition.html

Travelling from where one studies to where one is registered to vote can take more than a few minutes.
I know they could have registered where they were in college, but the point is that this makes students less likely to vote (for example, by causing lazy students to not vote, while not having the same effect on lazy non-students), and that is all that's required to skew the result to some extent.

nlgbbbblth

When I was in college it was considered 'cool' not to vote. I always made sure I voted but I think some people saw that as square.

Is this still the case?

Liam Byrne

brim4brim wrote:

I remain of the opinion that the big parties think young people voting equals votes for Sinn Fein and so always want to stop young people voting.

Whoa! That's a HUGE assumption!

I appreciate that your emphasis is on "what the big parties seem to think" as against what you personally think, but surely you have to give young people more credit than that!

And before I get flamed by any SF supporters, what I mean is that the majority of the electorate are not yet 100% convinced that SF have either (a) 100% committed or (b) good policies or (c) a combination of both.......[and PLEASE note that I used the word "YET".....I am hoping that is, or will be true] but SF still have a couple of theories/philosophies that don't sit well with people.

It's a bit of a jump to suppose that while most of the electorate appear to be able to see that, that young people don't have the same anxieties. True, the next generation - those who (hopefully) won't have lived through Gerry McCabe's and Robert McCartney's murders and Gerry Adams' refusal to acknowledge the basic human rights of their widows/sisters, preferring to be photographed with those involved, etc - will probably be able to gloss over it easier, but the current crop of 18-year-olds HAVE lived through some of the examples of "republican" crime, and have seen Gerry & Co avoid condemning them.

Yes, SF will have its supporters, as is their right, I suppose, considering that FF and Charlie and Bertie have theirs, no matter what they did either....but blanketing all "young people" as SF supporters is a huge leap, and combining that with the implication that it's a factor in the election date makes the Area 51 conspiracy seem believeable!

vallo

Lennoxschips wrote:

in that case, why have constituencies at all?

You might have something there!

People vote in their representatives because of favours they did them, because they see them in the local tesco doing their shopping or because they are down in the school handing out the medals every sportsday - it is nothing to do with how well they are able govern the nation.

I was flootering around on wikipedia recently and I came accross a definition of parochialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parochialism) which is interesting.

Personally, I'd like to see PR with a list system, so the best and brightest would be prioritised by their party, and the wasters who top the poll locally but are largely incompetent would be less likely to continue in office.