Waterford Election 2011

decies

It was John o Connor , John O’Connor, Munster Express, says FF don’t have many young people coming up to revive the party in Waterford #wd #twip #ge11

Poor Uncle Tom

decies wrote: »

( is it safe to come back on this thread)

The bansticks are back in their scabbards now....:p

Justin Collery

First off, thanks to everyone on boards for the support over the last 3 weeks. I had obviously hoped for more votes, but in fairness I was completely unknown 3 weeks ago, I'm not the local doctor, teacher or football/hurling star. Not a bad turnout, and again, thanks to all who supported me. I'm not sure about doing it on this thread, but if people have questions about the election etc., I'm happy to answer them.

Thanks,
JC

jayboi

Justin Collery wrote: »

First off, thanks to everyone on boards for the support over the last 3 weeks. I had obviously hoped for more votes, but in fairness I was completely unknown 3 weeks ago, I'm not the local doctor, teacher or football/hurling star. Not a bad turnout, and again, thanks to all who supported me. I'm not sure about doing it on this thread, but if people have questions about the election etc., I'm happy to answer them.

Thanks,
JC

You were up against it for the get go but you did better than other familair names so fair play!

Just wanted to konw is there a point where if you get certian amount of votes that you get a refund of certain costs?
Also is it expensive to run a campaign?

Justin Collery

jayboi wrote: »

You were up against it for the get go but you did better than other familair names so fair play!

Just wanted to konw is there a point where if you get certian amount of votes that you get a refund of certain costs?
Also is it expensive to run a campaign?

You need .25 of a quota to get your deposit (€500) and election expenses back. In this case that means about 2,550 votes. If you get that you get your election expenses back.

Now, interestingly the definition of election expenses that I have read (I don't have it here to double check) is much different than I would have imagined. Each candidate can spend up to about €32k, but no more. But things like advertising do not count as election expenses!?!? I'll be finalising my own accounts over the next week so I'll take a closer look at the definitions, but they look much narrower than I would have expected. The big players declare less than €32k each, but I think in reality spend much more than that.

To get elected you need a couple of things. Money is certainly one of them, but if you are clever I think you can do a lot with a little. In the end up I think I'll have spent somewhere between 6 - 8k. The main thing you need is name and face recognition. Before the election people need to know who you are and what you stand for. If 77,000 people know who you are you can get to work immediately on convincing them to vote got for you. If nobody knows you, you have to introduce yourself to 77,000 people first and then start the convincing, its quite a task!

JC

AdMMM

Justin, the following was my assessment of your chances:

Justin Collery is the candidate who is clinging onto the coattails of the Fintan O’Toole and David McWilliams approach to politics. He will poll quite well with the media coverage he has attracted but ultimately will struggle to break into 4 figures. His votes will come at the expense of everyone but will transfer back to them when he is eliminated as this is a strategy he has been advocating.

Saying that you were hanging onto the coattails of others was probably a bit harsh but I was quite cranky at that stage of my constituency breakdown because it was 4am and had already trashed out 2000 words! You did pretty well media-wise and in the run up to the election you got much more media coverage than most other candidates, even the high profile ones. You only have to look at the likes of Dylan Haskins who enjoyed unprecedented amounts of media coverage but only managed 1200 votes or so to surmise that people did believe your message and that media coverage isn't everything.

Best of luck to you in your future endeavours anyway.

Trotter

It was great to see Justin taking the shot at this one. I really admire him for that. 967 first preferences when we hadnt heard of Justin 6 weeks ago is really a good performance.

I'd advise Justin to keep going and try to become a household name in Waterford over the coming months/years. It'd be good to see maybe a column every so often in the papers written by him for example. Either way, well done Justin.

Otherwise it was unreal being in the count centre, if even a little tedious at times. I stayed til half 8 on the night of the count and just couldnt stay any longer after that. It was really interesting to see the different "factions".. with the words of "see him.. he's an awful yoke.." followed by "Ahhh howya!" when the two met only seconds later Pure politics!

The count is a great thing to see happening either way. Its just a pity that the exciting stuff all happened during the night this time.

Congrats to our new TDs anyway, the long road starts here!

dayshah

Justin Collery wrote: »

First off, thanks to everyone on boards for the support over the last 3 weeks. I had obviously hoped for more votes, but in fairness I was completely unknown 3 weeks ago, I'm not the local doctor, teacher or football/hurling star. Not a bad turnout, and again, thanks to all who supported me. I'm not sure about doing it on this thread, but if people have questions about the election etc., I'm happy to answer them.

Thanks,
JC

To be honest I don't know much about your policies, but fair play to you for putting your hat in the ring. Plenty of people just talk about not liking what's on offer, but you took that extra step and put your name forward.

sparkling sea

killbillvol2 wrote: »

FF lost 50 seats! On what planet would a total non-entity like Kenneally get major coverage?

It was more FF not having a seat in Waterford, we did have a tendency to vote for them no matter what.

Oh the planet is Earth.

wfman

Im delighted with the result.I always felt the best result for waterford was 2 fg 1 lab and 1 ind.The only suprise for me was Ciara Conway got the seat ahead of Seamus Ryan.
I wish them well and hope they work hard for the people of waterford.

STIG83

I heard my father saying about a guy he knows, This guy is a FG supporter, he always said that once FG got into power they would lift the smoking ban in pubs, coming from a guy who was ignoring the law on smoking in pubs and lit up in a certain pub in rural County Waterford numerous times before he was warned by the bar staff.
Not a hope FG will lift the smoking ban.

AdMMM

If they did, I'd hand in my notice tomorrow! I simply cannot imagine working in those conditions!

ziedth

Never happen I'd say, Ireland (IIRC) was one of the first countries to start the smoking ban and it was widely praised for it. Sounds like something you'd hear down the pub.

STIG83

That wont be lifted, everyone is obeying it, its ones of the things FF got right!! well most people and pubs are obeying it, the pub up the road from me was fined for breaking the law a couple of years back for allowing people to smoke inside

Trotter

It was good to see Ciara Conway interviewed on 6.1 today, and being on the right shoulder of the party leader as the Labour party had a press conference at government buildings. She seems ambitious and genuine anyway.

Black Dog

wfman wrote: »

Im delighted with the result.I always felt the best result for waterford was 2 fg 1 lab and 1 ind.The only suprise for me was Ciara Conway got the seat ahead of Seamus Ryan.
I wish them well and hope they work hard for the people of waterford.

It can be a small thing which influences one's vote. I have voted for Labour for many years and did so again this time but gave my number one to Ciara Conway and my number 2 to Seamus Ryan - why? I recall he had the highest or very nearly the highest expenses as a city councillor. It put me off. Reminded me of a comment I heard someone make once about someone: "He came to go good and he did well."

AdMMM

I'm working on a little review of how the election went on my blog and will post it up as soon as I get it done. I questioned whether Labour would be able to manage a 60% transfer rate needed to elect one of their candidates but they weren't far off and because they didn't end up splitting their vote, they didn't need 60% in the end! I very much doubt that it played out as they intended though as Ryan was their main candidate! Allowing her to canvass in Waterford City killed Seamus because he was already competing against 2 other left-wing city-based candidates as it was.

From tallying, I can tell you that the entire complexion of the election would have been different had Conway been eliminated first. On her own literature, she didn't ask for the voter to give their second preference to Ryan and this was very noticeable when the votes were being counted with Ryan often not featuring on any of Ciara's ballot papers!

Will keep further thoughts to the finished product!

STIG83

Where would i find the recording of the debate from WIT? is it online somewhere?

AdMMM

The guy who recorded the event for us seems to have fallen off the face of the earth!

STIG83

AdMMM wrote: »

The guy who recorded the event for us seems to have fallen off the face of the earth!

Haha, ah no problem anyway.

savina10

Remember to acknowledge the new voter profile in the area for this election. The county prob has a very different profile now with recent housing developments. Re-locater's and first time voters have no allegiance to Seamus Ryan or Keneally, votes are more arbitary in these cases. I dont believe for a second that any more people would have voted for Ryan just because Ciara Conway asked them to on her lit.

Psychedelic

Being the only female candidate helped her a lot too.

ziedth

^ I think this might have made a big difference.

AdMMM

Mary Roche was the only female candidate in 2007 AND she was an Independent. I don't think being a woman makes that big a difference!

savina10

Agreed. Seems fairly reductionist to attribute success to gender alone. Any candidate that actively campaigns as hard-working, contemporary, knowledgeable and action-oriented (with some level of integrity it would appear) would look like a good bet as a problem solver these days.

Looking forward to the jobs list next Saturday. How sad is that:o

ziedth

To be clear I'm not taking anything away from her nor am I suggesting that her election is based on her gender alone. She was my number 3 as a matter of fact, I think there surely is a undefined number of lady voters who maybe more open to voting for a woman if they had decided to vote Lab.

AdMMM

Looking forward to the jobs list next Saturday.

Assume you mean the publicjobs posts re: advisers and secretaries? I'm a bit young to get involved in any of that yet but can definitely see myself end up doing something in the halls of Leinster House.

Sully

STIG83 wrote: »

Haha, ah no problem anyway.

Will be raising it with the college tomorrow and asking them to chase him up. We called, texted and emailed - no answer. He is a user on boards and I know the course and year he is in. It was a college event, using college equipment so want to try get it.

Would have been happy if he just handed it back and said he didn't have time to do it. Alas!

Deise Tom

Are the figures available on-line as to how many first preference votes each canditate got in each box (not how many first preference votes collectivly, which i know is freely available), and what the percentage turn out was at each booth.

STIG83

Still a few election posters up around my area, hopefully they are taken down soon.