Voting method

I'd guess that some voters think you have 3, 4, or 5 votes as well, depending on the number of seats which might explain the multiple X's or 1's. Ironically, if you're completely tuned into the US or UK, you might put only a single X, which should be accepted here as it is a clear first preference.

It depends on the election, but in essence you have a collection of pre-printed lists of candidates (all candiates from the same party on one list); you pick one, put it in an unmarked envelope, and put that in the ballot box (or another envelope if voting remotely). Job done, vote cast for the whole lot of them and none of the others. What had me puzzled that first time is that there was only one list (it was for the school "governers"/parents' council) and I couldn't understand how I was casting a vote if all I was doing was handing back the list of names that had been given to me.

For the municipal elections, it is permitted to strike a candidate from the list, or to add a name of your choice - not that it makes any difference at all when there's still only one list. In our last municipal election, there were eleven candidates on one list fighting for eleven seats. They were all elected; quelle surprise … !

I would never have considered that this happens until reading about it here.

I would have thought maybe 1 in a 1,000 votes, but you suggest it's reasonably common.

No wonder there are spolit votes.

I wonder is it a lack of education among people in older cohorts, by that I mean people born maybe 1940-1960?

What does "as far as you can" mean?

No, its definitely down to Irish people who don't understand.

The number of British citizens who vote in Dáil elections (as they are entitled to do) is tiny, and EU citizens can only vote in local and European polls anyway.

The lack of education of the system when kids are in secondary school, and by the Electoral bodies in the media in advance of elections, is chronic.

There should be ads on radio and TV regularly in the current period, reminding people how to mark their ballots correctly and where to find simple guides online to inform them further.

Something to note is that 1s for no hopers, and late preferences for the eliminated can have financial implications for the state.

If a party gets over 2% of nationwide FPV in a general, they get funding til the next. Renua got this with no TDs in 2016 and basically uses it to pay for trolling twitter.

If a candidate has a quarter of a quota at elimination in general, euro or presidential (not local) elections they can get a partial refund of election expenses. Surpluses too small to elect someone can still be transferred if they can save someone's expenses. This is a case where a very low preference could give someone money - depending who it is you gave that preference to, this is something you may or may not want that to happen!

Not everyone can keep track on a 26-candidate ballot.

Honestly, I've no idea how the minutiae works. I've only ever worked as a boggo handcounter and the instructions are handed down from the returning officer at the top table. He or she works their process from a computer programme which creates the next step as the count progresses.

There certainly is a random element to the distribution, and it can be one of the main reasons for full or partial recounts if a candidate feels they were not proportionately accounted for.

Its funny, its quite a difficult thing to find a detailed description of online.

And FTPT promotes internal party divisions and all of these secret Party within a party's shenanigans with the likes of the ERG in the Tories having secret memberships, so voters don't even know who their candidate is really going to be representing after the election

Yes. If you only mark preferences for two candidates then it is impossible for your vote to count for any of the other candidates. If you only wish to support these two and don't care what happens with the rest then only marking two preferences is a fine strategy for you.

This all really depends on how many seats need to be filled. Voting for two candidates when there are three or more seats means people will definitely be elected without you having any say in it at all. As somebody said above, it's the difference between somebody you strongly dislike and a rabid fascist lunatic. I would always take the opportunity to vote for the person I strongly dislike if it means keeping the lunatic out of a seat.

The important thing to bear in mind throughout is that every vote FOR one candidate is a vote AGAINST the others.

You need to have enough votes to not get eliminated immediately. This isn't a fixed thing. Even not being last may not keep you in past one count.

When eliminated all votes are transferred, unless there is simply no point (everyone else is elected, or they delay as they have bigger bundles to transfer first)

I think a great example of lower order preferences making a crucial difference was in a real political Sliding Doors moment from the recent past.

Holly Cairns is the leader of the Social Democrats. However just over 5 years ago she was a political nobody.

She ran for that party in the rural area of Bantry-West Cork in the 2019 local elections. She ultimately got elected by a single vote to Cork County Council. Less than a year later she got elected to the Dail and the rest is history.

Here are the details of that election count:

Cairns had polled very well in First Preference (#1) votes placing her inside the top 3 with 4 seats to fill. However there were 3 FG candidates below her and when their votes consolidated their lead candidate leap-frogged Cairns to ultimately join the top 2 in getting elected. That left Cairns fighting it out with Independent candidate Finbarr Harrington (who himself had lost out on the 12th count in the 2014 election) for the final seat.

A pivotal moment was the 6th count. At this point Harrington was 40 votes ahead of Cairns. After the fifth count the second FF candidate, George Gill, was eliminated. This was the final elimination of the contest prior to the final round. That means that all of the subsequent rounds were determined by transferred ballots that had George Gill as their top preference of the remaining candidates.

So initially the largest number of those potential 1,508 Gill transfers went, as expected to his FF running mate Patrick Gerard Murphy, getting him elected. Cairns also did much better than Harrington out of them and was able to close the 40 vote gap between them completely to leave it as a tie.

The elected candidate Patrick Gerard Murphy received 489 transfers and since he was only just short of the quota of 2,308 prior to that count he now had an excess of 474 votes. When those were examined there was enough to get the FG candidate, Katie Murphy elected (she too had been just short of the quota). Crucially the battle between Harrington and Cairns swung back in the other direction as Harrington received more of these transfers and took a 9 vote lead.

That just left 68 votes to transfer. Just to reiterate these were votes that all had, in order of preference, George Gill, Patrick Gerard Murphy, Katie Murphy on them. They may not have had them as their exact #1, #2, #3 as there could have been other candidates on the ballot that had already been elected or eliminated but they were all definitely there and in that exact order.

Of those 68 ballots it turns out that a large number were actually non-transferrable at this point. That is to say that 32 out of the 68 of the ballots, that were going to decide the final seat, had neither Cairns nor Harrington marked at all on them. That means that 36 did. Since Harrington had a lead of 9 he only needed 14 of those to go his way in order to win. He got 13.

For the record this did actually go to a re-count and the above is the summation of that recount. In the initial vote Harrington was deemed to have won by a single vote but after the recount it was found that he had actually lost by that same margin. He is running again in this week's election.