European Parliament Elections 2019

Fan of Netflix

Think we should create a 4th constituency at this point, that would likely speed up the vote counting process. Ireland South and MNW are too big, takes too long. I reckon wait until the 2021 census then analyse it based on population, and try and tighten it in geographically etc.

Maybe Munster, Connacht Ulster, Dublin and rest of Leinster constituencies?

robman60

Fan of Netflix wrote: »

Think we should create a 4th constituency at this point, that would likely speed up the vote counting process. Ireland South and MNW are too big, takes too long. I reckon wait until the 2021 census then analyse it based on population, and try and tighten it in geographically etc.

Maybe Munster, Connacht Ulster, Dublin and rest of Leinster constituencies?

Connacht Ulster would probably only be a two-seater then though. Not sure if there is a rule for EU elections, but for the Dáil all constituencies have to be at least three seats.

Ireland South is shaping up nicely Ní Riadh has done well to pretty much hold the same lead she has held since the beginning and you'd expect her to maybe come second in transfers after Micky Wallace from the PBP elimination which is happening now.

Prepare for controversy this evening regarding eliminations and transfer counting. Only by the grace of God were they not made to look complete fools in Dublin and they might not be as lucky here.

badtoro

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I don't get all the hate for e-voting or, at the very least, machine-readable methods of voting

For me the first reason is that I don't trust e-voting not to be tampered with in some way, not bothered which other countries might use it, I don't want it used in this country where I vote. I'm happy with a paper and pencil which gets counted by people who are accountable.

Secondly I like the process, I've long said that the count is the only time we get to see politicians sweat a bit. Though thanks to the 4.5% (I think) error in Mings exit poll number I did some sweating myself before the 1st count.

Just Saying

Rebelbrowser wrote: »

Bit of a broken record here but the lack of reporting on Ireland South is unbelieveable. RTE's (meagre) online coverage is all about the midlands north west consitituency. On the news this morning RTE just called out those coming 1 to 5 in the Ireland South vote (only one elected so far, no one else anywhere near) and suggested those 5 would take the seats - eventhough there is a strong chance one of 6 or 7 will overtake. Not wanting to be one of those guys but if this was a Dublin constituency do you think they would be treating it like this?

It has been unbelievably poor in general.Reporters merely listing out the order of candidates without any word on the ground on transfers etc.
When the first count in Dublin came in Bryan Dobson just let Lisa Chambers rattle away about exit polls being wrong and never quizzed her about whether Andrews would get seat 3 or 4.If Brexit doesn't happen for any reason the FF will have 1 seat out of 11 in an election for which she was Director of Elections.
Ireland South is really difficult to call but has been more or less ignored.

Just Saying

is_that_so wrote: »

No they didn't really unless you took them as gospel but they made people wonder. In MNW , McHugh aside, they did show the lie of the land and the question still remained about where she could get transfers. As is clear she didn't have them. As for the locals well a 1%-2% swing is huge, especially for lower order seats. Candidates can get in on well under 1000 FPVs. In that context even a mini-surge in concert with a decline is SF and Indos worked in the Greens' favour.

To be fair they got Ming's vote very wrong.It led people(myself included) to question would he win a seat.

The only upside was he was worried himself and got his staff to do a tally on the second preferences.Given that they had a reasonable sample size it made predicting the 4 candidates easy(despite many on here ignoring these tallies)

robman60

RTÉ based their coverage on an exit poll, fawned over the Green Party for a few days, then neglected to cover the actual vote.

I'm in the UK and some Greek fella (he actually just ran for the EU parliament in Greece, lol) was telling me about the green wave in Ireland yesterday. I had to tell him he was the victim of fake news. :pac:

Cryptopagan

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

E-voting fans are sure that these same eejits can spec, commission and run an e-voting system which is secure from cyberattacks. They are wrong.

The current system is slow, but completely transparent and very, very secure, and there is no benefit, none, to getting a result in an hour vs. a week.

It ain't broke.

A computer could be used to count all preferences on all ballots, rather than distributing transferred ballots by extrapolating from the last bundle, which is what I think they do now (and which the evoting machines previously trialled were programmed to do.)

osarusan

SirGerryAdams wrote: »

Of course RTE, big business wanted a green wave because it means more taxes. That means when RTE go looking for more money there's a bigger pie to get a slice of and everyone knows any tax brought in will have some or most of it taken out of environmental spending.

The idea that RTE are hyping the Greens so that when the Greens increase tax, RTE will get more of it, is utter tinfoil hat stuff.

Cryptopagan

robman60 wrote: »

RTÉ based their coverage on an exit poll, fawned over the Green Party for a few days, then neglected to cover the actual vote.

I'm in the UK and some Greek fella (he actually just ran for the EU parliament in Greece, lol) was telling me about the green wave in Ireland yesterday. I had to tell him he was the victim of fake news. :pac:

You mean the Greens who gained at least 1 (and probably 2) MEPs, and a load of local council seats? Yeah fake news all right.

markodaly

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

So what? I'm not being smart, but what problem arises from the count taking 5 days or more?

Ah, sure it will be grand...

Nail on head on the many things wrong with the nation there my friend.

I am not being smart but are we the only EU nation still counting votes?

Christy42

markodaly wrote: »

Ah, sure it will be grand...

Nail on head on the many things wrong with the nation there my friend.

I am not being smart but are we the only EU nation still counting votes?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country

No it seems like e voting is in the minority as far as I can tell.

Evoting still has issues in that no one has built a secure enough system to protect votes from outside influence (and internal bugs I guess but that should be ok). Then you have the cost etc. (Though presumably you would save it in the long run if it worked out).

markodaly

is_that_so wrote: »

E-voting machines can be manipulated. Bear in mind most of Saturday was just separating and sorting, which would still need to be done in any circumstance.

I asked this the other day, but has there been any actual proof that e-voting machines in an OECD country had been maliciously tampered with by a 3rd party?

I have read about issues with random errors and variances here and there, due to human errors in the software, but I have not heard of an election being 'hacked'. Too much Russian hacking stories going around, taken as gospel by people who don't really know.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Just Saying wrote: »

To be fair they got Ming's vote very wrong.It led people(myself included) to question would he win a seat.

The only upside was he was worried himself and got his staff to do a tally on the second preferences.Given that they had a reasonable sample size it made predicting the 4 candidates easy(despite many on here ignoring these tallies)

I was very surprised at Flanagan’s exit poll figures. Not sure if he ever said anything on-the-record about it but I’m sure Flanagan himself was surprised. I don’t know where I’d place him if I was voting in that constituency but I know how popular he is, having lots of friends and family living there. I wondered too whether he would get a seat based on the exit poll.

Just Saying

Cryptopagan wrote: »

You mean the Greens who gained at least 1 (and probably 2) MEPs, and a load of local council seats? Yeah fake news all right.

There are 2 ways of looking at it..

1.The Greens did increase their vote and representation greatly albeit coming from a low base.

2.Nearly 90% of people didn't vote for them.Peter Casey is ahead of their candidate in Midlands NW.When the said Peter Casey got 20% of the vote in the Presidential election it was brushed under the carpet...There were no politicians publicly trying to align themselves with him.

Zubeneschamali

markodaly wrote: »

I am not being smart but are we the only EU nation still counting votes?

Yes, we are a laughing stock in the 21st century with our stupid auld pencils.

L1011

is_that_so wrote: »

One option might be doing it based on a list system instead for the Euros. Quicker, not as much fun and maybe not as representative but given the predicted MEPs, in advance of the election, have panned out there's not a lot lost.

The loss of preferential (both for and against) voting and the risk of awful candidates being second on a list is too high. And we'd need it to be a single national constituency as dhondt is far from proportional on small constituencies

markodaly

Christy42 wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country

No it seems like e voting is in the minority as far as I can tell.

Evoting still has issues in that no one has built a secure enough system to protect votes from outside influence (and internal bugs I guess but that should be ok). Then you have the cost etc. (Though presumably you would save it in the long run if it worked out).

Does that give a rundown on the countries that have a more automated method of voting, say using some kind of punch card system or some method to collate and count the votes.

I suppose a hybrid solution is to have an old fashioned ballot paper, but a sorting machine to count the votes and transfers.

Again, I looked there and I cannot see any other nation in the EU still counting votes. The south count looks to go on till Friday for crying out loud.

We don't even have postal voting or votes for those overseas. In fairness, our electoral and voting system is fairly archaic.

rossie1977

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I was very surprised at Flanagan’s exit poll figures. Not sure if he ever said anything on-the-record about it but I’m sure Flanagan himself was surprised. I don’t know where I’d place him if I was voting in that constituency but I know how popular he is, having lots of friends and family living there. I wondered too whether he would get a seat based on the exit poll.

Exit polls had margin of error of +-4 which RTÉ placed emphasis on.

golfball37

rossie1977 wrote: »

Exit polls had margin of error of +-4 which RTÉ placed emphasis on.

They overstated McHugh by 4% and Cuffe by 6%, even Grace O'Sullivan was overstated in South. Its very co-incidental imo.

Zubeneschamali

markodaly wrote: »

Again, I looked there and I cannot see any other nation in the EU still counting votes. The south count looks to go on till Friday for crying out loud.

Again, so what? The Euro candidates won't take up their seats until 2nd of July, there is no rush.

You are trying to solve a non problem by blowing huge money on a voting system which will be taken from secure storage every few years, dusted off, have software patches applied, get deployed, connected and tested, to be used for one day and then put back into storage.

An utter waste, even without the security and transparency worries.

markodaly

swampgas wrote: »

I have a background in electronics, IT and telecoms, and my day job is in cyber security. I know how easy it can be to hack e-voting in ways that are impossible to detect. I'm very happy to stick to the paper based system we have today, it's pretty hard to beat in terms of accuracy and transparency.

How does blockchain technology change the paradigm for this?

cruizer101

Irish Times have most recent distribution of A Wallaces votes
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/european-election/ireland-south

Not much for Clune as to be expected.
O'Sullivan gained about 400 on Ni Riada, gap now at 2,600, still probably bit much to pass her.

Zubeneschamali

golfball37 wrote: »

They overstated McHugh by 4% and Cuffe by 6%, even Grace O'Sullivan was overstated in South. Its very co-incidental imo.

No, there was clearly a problem with the poll - they oversampled young vs. old, or urban vs. rural, or something like that.


But it is just a poll, no-one loses a single vote over it.

Just Saying

rossie1977 wrote: »

Exit polls had margin of error of +-4 which RTÉ placed emphasis on.

They did place a lot of emphasis on the MOE but Ming was predicted to get 10% which means anything between 6 and 14 % falls within the MOE which is an enormous range and still he didn't fall within it at 14.3%.

It renders them useless in fields whereby lots of candidates get a similiar % of the polls.If one is out by 4.3% it means others will be more likely to be well out also.

An Ciarraioch

is_that_so wrote: »

One option might be doing it based on a list system instead for the Euros. Quicker, not as much fun and maybe not as representative but given the predicted MEPs, in advance of the election, have panned out there's not a lot lost.

Or redraw the map, and have three three-seaters outside Dublin - would probably need to add Clare and some Midlands counties to Connacht -Ulster, but as close to the old constituencies as population would allow.

SirGerryAdams

Regarding evoting and potential tampering. What's to stop someone making votes disappear at the count centre?

Theres so many people and movement I'd say it could be done.

And if you REALLY wanted to go the full hog - go in to vote, take some other papers with you and fold them up and pretend to deposit them in the box.

Take the real ballot home, photocopy it. Have a stamp and ink.

Then when you're counting on counting day slip them into the pile.

I've never been at a count so maybe it's not that easy.

Just Saying

golfball37 wrote: »

They overstated McHugh by 4% and Cuffe by 6%, even Grace O'Sullivan was overstated in South. Its very co-incidental imo.

I think that's slightly tongue in cheek!!!

Zubeneschamali

markodaly wrote: »

How does blockchain technology change the paradigm for this?

It proactively leverages the key indicators of the fundamental technology going forward.

Just Saying

SirGerryAdams wrote: »

Regarding evoting and potential tampering. What's to stop someone making votes disappear at the count centre?

Theres so many people and movement I'd say it could be done.

And if you REALLY wanted to go the full hog - go in to vote, take some other papers with you and fold them up and pretend to deposit them in the box.

Take the real ballot home, photocopy it. Have a stamp and ink.

Then when you're counting on counting day slip them into the pile.

I've never been at a count so maybe it's not that easy.

With a name like that Gerry its interesting to see the word "disappear" being mentioned!

fricatus

markodaly wrote: »

How does blockchain technology change the paradigm for this?

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

It proactively leverages the key indicators of the fundamental technology going forward.

I'd add to that that it standardises the methodologies for delivering win-win outcomes.