Check These Figures

dave-higgz

Ok, so I’ve been messing with the 07 election figures and I think I’ve noticed something very interesting. I decided to take all 1st preference votes (from wikipedia) and see how many people gave their first preferece votes to which political parties. I then divided the numbers to see what the Dail should really look like, (assuming however that every person in the country votes for a party rather than a person, which is usually the case).

Obviously Independents aren't a party and so for the purpose of this I am assuming that there is a party called "The independents" and Jackie Healey- Rae is their leader. Let's Imagine.....

So here is the dail just after the election: (166 seats)

FF: 78
FG: 51
Lab: 20
SF: 4
Greens: 6
PD: 2
Ind: 5

Now apply a "national view" with my figures and here's what you get:

FF: 70 (-8)
FG: 46 (-5)
Lab: 16 (-4)
SF: 11 (+7)
Greens: 8 (+2)
PD: 5 (+3)
Ind: 8 (+3)
The Left: 2

I guess the first thing I see in these figures is a huge drop for Fianna Fail seats. It seems proportional representation represents them a little over-proportionately , However with 5 seats more support from the Greens and the PD's the current government probably would have happened anyway.

FG aren't in much shape with 5 less and Labour with 4 less would have been a huge blow to them.

So then the big shock about this is the Sinn Fein and Left support. What I mean by the left is all votes to Fathers Rights, Workers Party, Christian Solidarity, Immigration Control, The People Before Profit Alliance, The Socialist Network and The Socialist Party. It seems then that Joe Higgins should be still in the Dail along with Richard Boyd Barrett, for example.

Then Sinn Fein, I found, were pulling big votes in some areas however they just weren't enough to secure seats. I don't really like Sinn Fein however they seem to have the backing of nearly 7% of the electorate. Why then shouldn't they have the seats??

turgon

dave-higgz wrote: »

I guess the first thing I see in these figures is a huge drop for Fianna Fail seats. It seems proportional representation represents them a little over-proportionately

If we were to have pure proportional representation, say in an all-Ireland constituency, how many seats would be given to Parties such as Sinn Fein, Workers Party, Socialist Party etc, who in reality are not fit for government? PR automatically trims the amount of seats fringe parties get, which enables easier formation of government by more realistic parties.

dave-higgz wrote: »

I don't really like Sinn Fein however they seem to have the backing of nearly 7% of the electorate. Why then shouldn't they have the seats??

Will I be the first to say "because its sinn fein"? Only messing of course! I can see where your logic comes into play, and if all the sinn feins supporters were in the same constituency they would pull bigger than now. But once again, PR as in Ireland tends to favour bigger parties.

Grudaire

Hmmm, did you do it on constituency basis? Because that can throw the figures a bit (eg how Bush won over in the States, with less votes...)


Eitherways is that what the votes say that people want!?

dave-higgz

turgon wrote: »

which enables easier formation of government by more realistic parties.

Are Fianna Fail a realistic party?? ......no seriously!

turgon wrote: »

But once again, PR as in Ireland tends to favour bigger parties.

That's the problem though. The big parties make the rules and they benefit from it!

dave-higgz

Cliste wrote: »

Hmmm, did you do it on constituency basis? Because that can throw the figures a bit (eg how Bush won over in the States, with less votes...)

Yeah the same thing as Bush could and may have already happened here. Imagine Sinn Fein is Bush. You have the popular vote but the electoral college system skrews u over big time!

Just to re-iterate. I don't like SF, but I'm pointing out how mis-represented they are

nesf

dave-higgz wrote: »

That's the problem though. The big parties make the rules and they benefit from it!

Compared to first-past-the-post system PR is very favourable to smaller parties. I don't think it makes much sense to look at 1st preference votes in a PR system because how the rest of a person's preferences are makes a huge difference. People "raising Turkeys" etc.

Grudaire

dave-higgz wrote: »

Just to re-iterate. I don't like SF, but I'm pointing out how mis-represented they are

Are they really though. I could see everyone abandoning the likes of the Greens to make sure that a Shinner doesn't get elected. They have some loyal support, but a lot of people really don't like them (hate, despise, loath, fear)

dave-higgz

nesf wrote: »

Compared to first-past-the-post system PR is very favourable to smaller parties. I don't think it makes much sense to look at 1st preference votes in a PR system because how the rest of a person's preferences are makes a huge difference. People "raising Turkeys" etc.

Well it has to be said that the number 1 on your ballot paper is the most important part of a citizen's vote and usually it is a representation of the person's favorite party or whether they vote for left wing or not.

Where someone puts a Fianna Fail candidate number 1, it's hardly going to be followed by Fine Gael or Labour in second place! It'll most likely be a second Fianna Fail candidate or a PD or maybe in the odd case you'll have Greens or Independent's following a FF 1st pref.

nesf

dave-higgz wrote: »

Well it has to be said that the number 1 on your ballot paper is the most important part of a citizen's vote and usually it is a representation of the person's favorite party or whether they vote for left wing or not.

Where someone puts a Fianna Fail candidate number 1, it's hardly going to be followed by Fine Gael or Labour in second place! It'll most likely be a second Fianna Fail candidate or a PD or maybe in the odd case you'll have Greens or Independent's following a FF 1st pref.

Ok, sorry I assumed you'd know what I meant by "raising a turkey". In our PR system, like many others, there's a peculiarity that can be abused to make your vote count more than other people's. When someone exceeds the quota for election the excess votes get transferred on. Now what happens isn't that they calculate the average transfer from the people who had him as their first preference. What they do is take X (where X is the number of excess votes) from the pile starting with the last one to be counted and work their way back along. This means that only votes which are counted last get picked to go on.

Now, if you can manage to ensure that your vote is counted towards the end you dramatically increase the impact of your vote (specifically your 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences and so on) by ensuring that you're more likely to get transferred on. There is a way to do this. What you do is give your first preference to someone who has no hope of being elected and who is going to be eliminated relatively early on. Since when he gets eliminated all his votes will be portioned out between the remaining candidates putting your vote at the top of the said pile. Now you can extend this by ensuring your second preference is for someone who will be eliminated later but who again has no chance of being elected.

This is referred to as "raising a turkey". What it means is that you can't assume that people's first preferences are their actual choices for election. You need to look further down their ballot paper and see the rest of their preferences to be able to divide "honest" first preferences from "calculating" ones.


There are further problems where looking at national numbers of first preferences is misleading due to the heterogeneity of constituencies both in voting patters and seats available.

Permabear

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dave-higgz

nesf wrote: »

Ok, sorry I assumed you'd know what I meant by "raising a turkey". In our PR system, like many others, there's a peculiarity that can be abused to make your vote count more than other people's. When someone exceeds the quota for election the excess votes get transferred on. Now what happens isn't that they calculate the average transfer from the people who had him as their first preference. What they do is take X (where X is the number of excess votes) from the pile starting with the last one to be counted and work their way back along. This means that only votes which are counted last get picked to go on.

Now, if you can manage to ensure that your vote is counted towards the end you dramatically increase the impact of your vote (specifically your 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences and so on) by ensuring that you're more likely to get transferred on. There is a way to do this. What you do is give your first preference to someone who has no hope of being elected and who is going to be eliminated relatively early on. Since when he gets eliminated all his votes will be portioned out between the remaining candidates putting your vote at the top of the said pile. Now you can extend this by ensuring your second preference is for someone who will be eliminated later but who again has no chance of being elected.

This is referred to as "raising a turkey". What it means is that you can't assume that people's first preferences are their actual choices for election. You need to look further down their ballot paper and see the rest of their preferences to be able to divide "honest" first preferences from "calculating" ones.


There are further problems where looking at national numbers of first preferences is misleading due to the heterogeneity of constituencies both in voting patters and seats available.

Oh wow thanks for that, I never knew you could do that. I'm only 16 though, can't vote yet!!!! :rolleyes:

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yeah I guess, "others" would be a better title. And we can discount most of those groups anyway.

nesf

dave-higgz wrote: »

Oh wow thanks for that, I never knew you could do that. I'm only 16 though, can't vote yet!!!! :rolleyes:

Well, it's got the delicious irony that if sufficient people decide to do it that some hitherto unelectable nutcase suddenly becomes a TD.

P. Breathnach

nesf wrote: »

Well, it's got the delicious irony that if sufficient people decide to do it that some hitherto unelectable nutcase suddenly becomes a TD.

I think that has happened a few times.

nesf

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I think that has happened a few times.

I believe it has but I can't think of any examples off hand.

P. Breathnach

nesf wrote: »

I believe it has but I can't think of any examples off hand.

My comment was tongue-in-cheek. Over the years the people of Ireland have voted in many candidates that I would have preferred to see as unelectable.

I'm not going to start another useless argument by naming any of them.

There have been a few cases over the years of vote management going wrong, and a party's "second" candidate getting in at the expense of a colleague who, had he or she gone all out to get as many first preferences as possible, would have got in fairly comfortably. Brian Lenihan senior once lost his seat that way.

nesf

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Over the years the people of Ireland have voted in many candidates that I would have preferred to see as unelectable.

You mean the vast majority of them?