European Parliament Elections 2024 - Friday, June 7th

I asked the above person "Any link's or quotes from MEP's on the above?" (Linking Sean Kelly tweet). I took the comment at face value when it was posted on 13th. He replied with: -

What are people's opinion on that website? There seems to be no search option on the site. And tried to see if there was archive clips of the site recently.

@markodaly

If being elected 2 or 3 days after other MEPs is the main determinant of what roles our MEPs get in the European Parliament, it speaks worse of the European Parliament than of our voting system.

Yeah but that's not what you said.

No, its exactly what I said.

You are dancing on a pinhead now to try and get your point across.

And no, I am not going to give you the exact date or minutes these words were said

Shocking.

And I was following the election coverage closely, not once did I see any serious political commentator or candidate even mention that it was important that their election be confirmed by the 10th instead of the 13th. Luke Flanagan has been in the Parliament for ten years already, he's pretty well-versed in the how the halls of Brussels work. His seat this time round wasn't confirmed until the 13th - has he or any of his team made any mention whatsoever of how he has been disadvantaged by this?

So a classic "do my research for me" line of argument

On counting: There is a point here. In an FPTP election each ballot paper is counted only once. It doesn't matter how many candidates there are; that doesn't affect counting time at all. It does matter how many ballot papers there are, but if, in a euro election you have (say) ten times as many ballot papers in a euro constituency as you would in a domestic constituency, you can still count them in the same time if you also have ten times as many counting staff. And you can have that if you want; the counting staff who would deal with ten national constituencies in a national election can deal with one euro constituency in a euro election — same number of voters, same number of counting staff, pretty much the same counting time. The bottom line is that, nationally, you're dealing with the same electorate in both elections. Turnout may be higher in one election than in the other; that will affect the number of ballots to be counted, and so the counting time. But otherwise all the relevant factors are pretty much the same.

Whereas with STV, many ballot papers have to be counted more than once. The more candidates there are, the greater the proportion of ballot papers that have to be counted more than once, and the greater the number of times each of them is likely to have to be counted.

This isn't an insoluble problem; there are several possible ways to address the problem, of which the technological approach — scanning the ballots and conducting the counts electronically — is only one, and not necessarily the most attractive one. And, remember, the problem you're trying to solve does not result from the number of ballots to be counted; it results from the number of candidates. So parsimonious solutions to that problem — i.e. solutions which have the minimum number of side effects and unintended effects — will look at that factor.

But the first question to be asked is: is it a problem at all? Myself, I'd like a lot more detail on that. As already pointed out, much of the wheeling and dealing we are being told abour could go on before the vote is held at all. Does it? If not, why not? If it goes on after the vote, but immediately after, are Irish MEPs the only ones excluded from it? What about other countries with only provisional results — do the provisionally successful candidates wheel and deal, only for the deals to be unpicked and repeated if that is necessitated by the actual valid result, when declared? Or are all those countries as disadvantaged as Ireland supposedly is? And what, exactly, is the disadvantage accruing? What is it that goes on between 3 and 5 days after the poll that doesn't go on either before that period or after it? I'd like to read in some detail about this from MEPs themselves, or from esablished and credible journalists who cover the EU institutions and know what they're talking about. Has Tony Connolly ever reported on this, for example, or anyone of that stature?

My point was simply that PR-STV doesn't scale when you increase the electorate and increase the ballot paper.

You seem to agree with this point but then disagree at the same time.

Sigh, you are still beating this dead horse.

You agree with @Peregrinus in how PR-STV doesn't scale, as each vote has to be counted numerous times, which was my very point and couple this with a long canidate list.

But you want to try and beat me down to agree with you, that PR-SRV is actualy fine, and scales just fine.

Put it this way.

Say you had a candiate list of 40 and an electorate of 5 mllion.

Which one will be counted quicker.

FPTP or PR-STV

FPTP would be done that night, while PR-STV could go on a number of weeks.

That is why PR-SRV doesnt scale.

Dr. Therea Reidy was one person who mentioned the long count and long ballot paper.
https://www.rte.ie/player/series/elections-2024/10005579-00-0000?epguid=IH10005249-24-0001

Knock yourself out.

Loads of people have mentioned the long count and long ballot paper. Not one person on this discussion has said the count or ballot paper was short.

You have claimed that the long count has disadvantaged the Irish MEPs due to "wheeling and dealing". You have been asked over and over to provide evidence to support this claim, and you haven't done so

It was mentioned on the various broadcasts, and no I am not going to rewatch all the election broadcasts on RTE or VMTV to tell you the exact minutes this was discussed.

It was mentioned on this thread, but only by me. Have a look if you want.

Grand so, you have nothing. "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence"

In the link you provided, she only speaks for about 3 minutes. I was referring to the first episode. From your follow on post, I realise you meant all 3 (which is ridiculous btw).

I have listened to what she said in episode 2 and episode 3. Nowhere does she mentioned backroom dealings or the length of the count. At the 2:05 mark of the 3rd episode she discusses the physical length of the ballot paper. However, that is not the topic being discussed here.

Can you point to where she discusses the negative consequences? Its entirely possible I missed something. There's only one person posting in bad faith here and it aint myself.

Independent MEP Michael McNamara poised to join Fianna Fáil’s EU political family ~ [Archive Link]
The ex-Labour TD is in advanced talks with the Renew group

The renew group is in decline, now as of today down to 74 MEPs.

Former Czech PM Andrej Babiš has quit the liberal Renew group in the European Parliament.

I think McNamara was the candidate that said he would wait until after election to decide on what group to join?

Feedback on twitter a bit of turncoat was mentioned!

Drafted this post before 13:00 and was waiting to see if any other worthy news appeared.