Seanad Election 2016

An Ciarraioch

L1011 wrote: »

SF's discipline in vote management is showing (not that its even vaguely surprising) - think they got one over the line on the first count on every panel?

Labour have picked up large enough transfers from outside the party on the panels contested but the first prefs on the smaller panels were surprising - have about 70 votes but Humphreys has got 99 1s and O'Riordan 88. Can only assume councillors of various centre-left persuasions who didn't have a matching Green/SD/Ind candidate voted there.

The Greens and SDs only ran one candidate each, so plausible - noteworthy that 44% of the latter's transfers went straight to the Greens - so smaller parties likely to stick together first, and votes only going to Labour when that becomes the default left option. Prendiville was eliminated as last unelected candidate, so we'll never know how AAA transfers would have worked out.

An Ciarraioch

Niall O'Donghaile (SF) is an interesting electee on the Admin panel - a gaeilgeoir from Belfast, so at least one Northern representative in the Oireachtas.

Chips Lovell

The one thing Mullen's repeated electoral performances tell us is, no matter what you think of him, he's good at mobilsing his vote.

Geuze

The Irish Times has an opinion piece today, pointing out that a "smugness" exists with "liberalism", where they:

"paint those who disagree with them as not just wrong, but actually stupid, ignorant and bad. Rather than make even the faintest effort to understand the point of view of their opponents, they mock and ridicule."

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/how-can-people-like-us-vote-for-ronan-mullen-1.2627838


You can see that type of response on Twitter.

It seems there was a similar response to the election of Jack Chambers in GE2016 in Dublin.

L1011

Kevin Humphreys vs Mary Fitzpatrick for the last seat (due to the inside/outside rule electing Dolan by default).

Fred Swanson

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L1011

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Dolan in by default due to subpanelling, cannot be excluded. Fitzpatrick may easily get more transfers than Humphreys from the more rural and hence more FF-friendly people being excluded next.

edit: although Humphreys took 24 'thousand' transfers more than her on the Sheahan elimination.

L1011

Humphreys got in - transfers mean he didn't actually get the nominally last seat, Wilson did.

Fred Swanson

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An Ciarraioch

L1011 wrote: »

Kevin Humphreys vs Mary Fitzpatrick for the last seat (due to the inside/outside rule electing Dolan by default).

Humphreys makes it a Labour clean sweep, and fills the last of the 49 elected seats. So, that leaves us:

FF 14
FG 13
Ind 10
SF 7
Lab 4
Green 1

L1011

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Humphreys makes it a Labour clean sweep, and fills the last of the 49 elected seats. So, that leaves us:

FF 14
FG 13
Ind 10
SF 7
Lab 4
Green 1

5 - Bacik is the only party aligned university senator though I think

Sleepy

CramCycle wrote: »

Sad times, must pull the finger out the next time and launch a targeted sign up and stop Mullen campaign.

LOL, I actually posted the link to the Registration to my Facebook account in response to hearing he got elected.

blackwhite wrote: »

Much and all as I detest Mullen, I can help but feel his election provides somewhat of a strange balance to the election of Bacik by the TCD electorate.

Two hardcore extremists from opposing ends of the spectrum - hopefully they just cancel each other out.

I haven't seen the figures for this election yet but in 2011 only 33,831 (or about a third) of the eligible electorate voted in the NUI panel while the Trinity electorate managed 15,557 or 29% of those eligible to vote.

Low turnouts suit extremists at any end of the spectrum as their votes are the most likely to use their vote. Neither Bacik nor Mullen have ever stood a chance in a general election and if we had mandatory voting, I wager you'd see them fail even harder.

Which is why CramCycle has a very valid point imho. If we want less nutjobs in the Seaned we need to encourage our less interested friends to make use of their votes in Seaned elections if they have them.

doc11

Sleepy wrote: »

LOL, I actually posted the link to the Registration to my Facebook account in response to hearing he got elected.


I haven't seen the figures for this election yet but in 2011 only 33,831 (or about a third) of the eligible electorate voted in the NUI panel while the Trinity electorate managed 15,557 or 29% of those eligible to vote.

Low turnouts suit extremists at any end of the spectrum as their votes are the most likely to use their vote. Neither Bacik nor Mullen have ever stood a chance in a general election and if we had mandatory voting, I wager you'd see them fail even harder.

Which is why CramCycle has a very valid point imho. If we want less nutjobs in the Seaned we need to encourage our less interested friends to make use of their votes in Seaned elections if they have them.

I wouldn't class Mullen or Bacik as "nutjobs" both are highly intelligent and articulate Senators from opposite ends of the social spectrum. The fact they wouldn't get elected in a general election tells you more about the political system then them. There's plenty of Mullen and Bacik TD's in the dail in hiding, but it's just more of "fix the road" or "increase social welfare/lower taxes" type of game not an abortion/gay marriage one(look at Labours general election). And even at that stick a FF/FG badge on mullen and he prob get elected easily and Bacik had Eamon Gilmore to deal with in 2011 taking the labour vote.

Fred Swanson

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L1011

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Some of them are guaranteed. Some having lost two elections at that!

They only appointed so many non-party ones last time as Labour basically insisted on it and they had a majority anyway but that dwindled with Renua/SD defections and that by-election cockup.

An Ciarraioch

L1011 wrote: »

Some of them are guaranteed. Some having lost two elections at that!

They only appointed so many non-party ones last time as Labour basically insisted on it and they had a majority anyway but that dwindled with Renua/SD defections and that by-election cockup.

For one, you can be certain James Bannon will be appointed, given Longford is the only county without a TD.

Sleepy

doc11 wrote: »

I wouldn't class Mullen or Bacik as "nutjobs" both are highly intelligent and articulate Senators from opposite ends of the social spectrum. The fact they wouldn't get elected in a general election tells you more about the political system then them. There's plenty of Mullen and Bacik TD's in the dail in hiding, but it's just more of "fix the road" or "increase social welfare/lower taxes" type of game not an abortion/gay marriage one(look at Labours general election). And even at that stick a FF/FG badge on mullen and he prob get elected easily and Bacik had Eamon Gilmore to deal with in 2011 taking the labour vote.

One's a raging misandrist, the other's a foaming-at-the-mouth, hard-line Catholic. Both qualify as nutjobs imo.

That there are other nutjob TD's doesn't mean we should consider them electable candidates, it means we need to take a long, hard look at our electoral process and the education system.

CramCycle

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

For one, you can be certain James Bannon will be appointed, given Longford is the only county without a TD.

A shame, as a Longfordian, I have found him to be quite distasteful. he turned up at my Grand mothers funeral, and my grieving aunt, who was no longer living locally, asked him, politely, who he was. To which he shouted at her that he was James Bannon, Longfords TD, how could she not know who he is, I was half expecting him to take out his phone and get a selfie at the coffin.

doc11 wrote: »

I wouldn't class Mullen or Bacik as "nutjobs" both are highly intelligent and articulate Senators from opposite ends of the social spectrum. The fact they wouldn't get elected in a general election tells you more about the political system then them. There's plenty of Mullen and Bacik TD's in the dail in hiding, but it's just more of "fix the road" or "increase social welfare/lower taxes" type of game not an abortion/gay marriage one(look at Labours general election). And even at that stick a FF/FG badge on mullen and he prob get elected easily and Bacik had Eamon Gilmore to deal with in 2011 taking the labour vote.

I wouldn't call him a nutjob, a fine line between psychopath and sociopath but closer to the former having no regard for women in particular and a view that in an episode of Father Ted would have been the "odd Priest of the week", good for an old chuckle so long as it's in TV land and not someone involved in the real world.

I have no doubt there are Mullen type characters in Ireland, probably a high enough percentage unfortunately but I can't square it away with there being that high a percentage in the graduates of NUIs but out of all my friends and associates, the number of us who vote in the seanad elections are in the 10% range.

blackwhite

CramCycle wrote: »

A shame, as a Longfordian, I have found him to be quite distasteful. he turned up at my Grand mothers funeral, and my grieving aunt, who was no longer living locally, asked him, politely, who he was. To which he shouted at her that he was James Bannon, Longfords TD, how could she not know who he is, I was half expecting him to take out his phone and get a selfie at the coffin.


I wouldn't call him a nutjob, a fine line between psychopath and sociopath but closer to the former having no regard for women in particular and a view that in an episode of Father Ted would have been the "odd Priest of the week", good for an old chuckle so long as it's in TV land and not someone involved in the real world.

I have no doubt there are Mullen type characters in Ireland, probably a high enough percentage unfortunately but I can't square it away with there being that high a percentage in the graduates of NUIs but out of all my friends and associates, the number of us who vote in the seanad elections are in the 10% range.

All priests graduating from St Pats Maynooth are classified as NUI Grads. From what I've heard, their registration % is a lot higher than a lot of other colleges in NUI

CramCycle

blackwhite wrote: »

All priests graduating from St Pats Maynooth are classified as NUI Grads. From what I've heard, their registration % is a lot higher than a lot of other colleges in NUI

Do they publish a % registered per Institution. Interesting to see this and an age profile and gender profile if possible.

Water John

FG 13 + 11 = 24 well shy of 30. But fine with FF's 14 abstaining.

FG 24, FF 14, Others 22.
FG cannot afford Cathairloch.

blackwhite

CramCycle wrote: »

Do they publish a % registered per Institution. Interesting to see this and an age profile and gender profile if possible.

No idea. Purely anecdotal accounts that I've heard