Voting method

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122215739#Comment_122215739

In a word, no. Think of it as a race to the quota at the front and a race to avoid elimination at the rear. The more first preferences you have give you a lead in the race but nothing more. In some exceptional cases, you might make it in the first count. But, mostly it takes multiple counts to get there. The system tries hard to keep people in the race as long as possible, by distributing surpluses before doing eliminations, but eventually it always comes to a stage where the back markers have to be eliminated and their next preferences distributed, so all the seats get filled. It sometimes happens that the last one or two leaders don't make it to the quota (eg if what people are talking about here happens, and voters don't vote down the ballot for lower preferences). In that case, these candidates get elected without crossing the finish line, because there are no more votes to be redistributed.

Collie D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122216519#Comment_122216519

Great post/example.

geographica

definition of a “polling station”?

is a polling station the whole building of say a community centre or school?

there were many many posters within 50 metres of our polling station yesterday (the building), was told they at the centre decided it was from the gate not the actual building

Not sure there is a definitive definition?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122233417#Comment_122233417

It's up to the presiding officer to enforce the rules, so what he things is included in the "polling station" tends to be what matters.

To some extent it's going to depend on the kind of premises in which the polling station is located. But a great many of them are in primary schools, and it's a fairly well-established understanding that the polling station extends to the schoolyard gate. I think most presiding officers take that view.

Capt'n Midnight

Aontú's Melissa Byrne and Sinn Féin's James Stokes were very close in Newbridge, Kildare.

Count 10 went down to the wire, with both Melissa Byrne and James Stokes winding up with 1098 votes apiece.

However, Melissa had more first preference votes, so James was eliminated.

And then there were the recounts

https://kildare-nationalist.ie/2024/06/12/white-smoke-in-newbridge-lea/

A fourth recount was requested by Aontú’s Melissa Byrne in the early
hours and the count team are currently deliberating on it. It is worth
noting that none of the four counts so far, the initial count and three
recounts, have returned the same final figures.

plodder

Kathy Sheridan in the Irish Times wrestled with this problem, deciding to both vote up and down the ballot, then discovering she had two number 12's on it at the end. That wouldn't count as a spoilt vote though. So long as a vote has a valid #1 it's not spoiled. It would just become non-transferrable in the unlikely event it got to #12.

What she might have done was she went to the polling clerk and asked for a new ballot, making the original one technically spoiled, but not counted as such at the count. I'd guess most people don't realise you can do that.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/06/12/kathy-sheridan-i-ranked-among-that-much-derided-category-of-people-who-spoil-their-vote/