Irish general election, 26th Feb 2016

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Much to my surprise it looks now nearly totally certain that Offaly will end 1FF 1FG 1SF and 2FF 1FG as I thought earlier. FF still getting killed on transfers.

MARCELLA CORCORAN-KENNEDY , FG Count elected
+11313
CAROL NOLAN , SF
+8785
EDDIE FITZPATRICK , FF
+8521

Only Corcoran-Kennedy's Surplus to be allocated.

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Some General Observations

Fine Gael
Best 5 constituencies:
Mayo 51%
Limerick County 37%
Dun Laoghaire 36% (Their vote here actually went up)
Meath East 34.8%
Laois 32.4%

Worst 5 constituencies:
Dublin North West 12.5% (Yet strangely they have a chance of a gain here)
Dublin Central 13.6%
Dublin South Central 14.3%
Roscommon-Galway 14.9%
Offaly 15.5%

Fianna Fail
Best 5 constituencies:
Cork South Central 41.6% (leadership bonus is real)
Carlow-Kilkenny 40.4%
Kildare South 36.4%
Offaly 35.8%
Laois 35.1%

Worst 5 constituencies:
Dublin Rathdown 10.3%
Dublin Central 10.6%
Dublin Bay South 11.5%
Dublin South Central 12.7%
Dublin North West 12.8%

Labour

For this I'm obviously excluding the constituencies Labour didn't run in: Donegal, Mayo, Cavan-Monaghan, Offaly, Limerick County and Cork North West

Best 5 constituencies:
Dublin West 15.4% (again.... leader bonus)
Wexford 14.8%
Cork East 13.2%
Kildare South 11.6%
Limerick City 11.2%

Worst 5 constituencies:
Roscommon-Galway 2.7%
Sligo-Leitrim 2.9%
Meath West 3%
Wicklow 3.8%(!!!!!!!!)
Cork South Central 4.3%

Greens
Best 5 constituencies:
Dublin Bay South 11.4%
Dublin Rathdown 10.3%
Dun Laoghaire 5.9%
Louth 4.7%
Dublin Fingal 4.6%

Not bothering doing the worst five as they got between 0.5-2% in several (mostly rural) constituencies and I don't think it would tell us much.

I'll fill in Sinn Fein, Renua and the Soc Dems later when I have more data to hand.

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Why aren't surpluses automatically reallocated once they occur?

They are in nearly all circumstances (unless the surplus is less than that the gap between the bottom two candidates or similar)

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Dublin Mid West count has concluded with, as expected, Gino Kelly (Alphabet Left) and John Curran (FF) elected

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Cork North West has declared with A. Moynihan (FF) and M. Moynihan (FF) elected. Interestingly this was off the back of a Michael Creed's (FG) 3,000+ vote surplus which went about (this is very rough) 60-40 in favour of the two Fianna Fail candidates against independent John Paul O'Shea who fell 250 votes short.

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Carol Nolan (SF) wins the final Offaly seat.

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Dublin South West declared Brophy (FG) and Zappone (Ind) the last to be elected. Zappone's election is being challenged by FG who are demanding a recount but imo the gap of 152 votes might be too much to bridge. If her election is confirmed then Zappone will become the first open lesbian to enter the Dail.

Also in Roscommon-Galway Eugene Murphy (FF) has been elected, along with two independents confirmed earlier. This means that Roscommon-Galway will be without an FG TD, probably the only such seat in the country (although Dublin North West is another possibility).

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In Dublin South-Central, 1 FG, 1 SF, and 1 ind (Joan Collins, formerly of the PBP) have all been elected. At the last count, with two candidates (Catherine Ardagh of Fianna Fail and Brid Smith of PBP) remaining, the difference between them is just 5 votes -- 7841-7836. This one may see some repeated recounting.

Recounting that must be hell. STV is the wet dream of first-year political science students all around the world, but this election has once again convinced me that it is, in reality, a highly undesirable system, for numerous reasons.

Speaking of recounting that, the RTE website now has Smith ahead of Ardagh by 35 votes, though there is still no checkmark by either woman.

As to ideal political system, every country is different, though my ideal legislative chamber would probably be a mixture of Australia's HoR (with some elected from individual-member STV seats) and Senate (others elected from a list in order to ensure proportionality, with no or very little barrier to getting on the ballot and numbering every candidate mandatory, to ensure that sometimes even very small parties get to have their voices heard).

"Civil War politics" is a problem in Ireland, but if that's what the voters elect as their main political faultline, then so be it; what the country needs in my mind is to fight the epidemic of independent politicians that prevent majorities for all but the most unwieldy of coalitions.

In your first post you forgot that Collins surplus of 52 votes had to be distributed, that was the final court and why Smith jumped ahead of Ardagh.

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Noel Grealish (IND) elected in Galway West.

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Kildare North Finished: Durkan (FG), Lawless (FF), and O'Rourke (FF) elected. 2FF 1FG 1SD in total.

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Wonder if Aodhan O Riordain ("Ireland hasn't just said yes, Ireland has said f<3ck yeaaah!!!!!") will hold on to his Dublin Bay North seat. Doesn't look good for him, because the two indies (who are currently still behind him) will probably benefit from better transfers, and there are no FG candidates that will be eliminated anymore.

Well the second FG candidate's votes are currently being distributed after her elimination, but that will mainly benefit Richard Bruton. The two remaining independents are a left-wing incumbent TD who was originally elected for Labour (Broughan) and a very high profile ex-member of FF who had a falling out with the party (Power). Plus there is the Independents Alliance candidate Finian McGrath, a long serving Independent TD who has Shinner political roots (and clearly gets a lot of what would be otherwise Shinner votes). It's extremely difficult to call but I wouldn't fancy O'Riordain's chances tbh. The performance of the AAA-PBP candidate is a surprise and he now looks a good chance to be elected.

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Also in Roscommon-Galway Eugene Murphy (FF) has been elected, along with two independents confirmed earlier. This means that Roscommon-Galway will be without an FG TD, probably the only such seat in the country (although Dublin North West is another possibility).

To clarify on this, Dublin North West did elected an FG TD this morning: Noel Rock. However, there will be another constituency without an FG TD, Tipperary, which eventually choose 3INDS 1LAB and 1FF. Alan Kelly returns.

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Louth - After the distribution of the Independents Alliance candidate showed itself to be surprisingly favourable, Ged Nash now has a real chance of belonging to the group of surviving Labour TDs. The AAA-PBP candidate is now being eliminated which should elect the second SF candidate, after that it would come to her surplus and how it distributes between the two FG candidates and Nash for the final two seats.

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Dublin Bay North - Finally someone is elected: Richard Bruton (FG). The next count will be the distribution of his surplus to see whether Flanagan (RN) or Heney (FF) is the next to be eliminated.

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One thing this election has emphasized is how important running the right number of candidates is.

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Donegal - Pearse Doherty (SF) elected; a surplus of about 2,400 votes to be distributed given the second SF candidate a serious chance.

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The US prediction markets are giving Enda Kenny a 69% chance to be re-elected Taoiseach - this is incredibly overvalued, yes?

Lord knows what is going to happen, but yes. But only a fool would bet now on what's going to happen. It's possible Kenny will be re-elected as a caretaker and then a second election called.

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Wicklow: Casey (FF) and Doyle (FG) confirmed. Last chance of Renua for a seat is gone.

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How likely are AAA-PBP to split back into their constituent parts after the election? Alternatively, how likely are they to merge permanently? In fact, what are the differences between them?

1) Extremely likely, they have before

2) Too many obstacles of personality and organization for that

3) They belong to different socialist 'internationals' and the PBP is a front name for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) a group famous for entryism and trying to take over organizations.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Thanks for the answers. One other question just for fun: which politician/party is equivalent to Sanders/Paul? (i.e. They have a lot of young, loud supporters and do much better on the internet than in real life?)

In the last year the Social Democrats have sort of fit into that pattern.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Donegal: Thomas Pringle (IND) wins the final seat over the second Sinn Fein candidate. Final Result: 2FF 1FG 1SF 1IND

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Thanks for the answers. One other question just for fun: which politician/party is equivalent to Sanders/Paul? (i.e. They have a lot of young, loud supporters and do much better on the internet than in real life?)

In the last year the Social Democrats have sort of fit into that pattern.

I think SF fit that better actually since the Social Democrats actually did do very well whereas SF kind of deflated in the last few months.

Oh yes, I forgot about Shinnerbots. The worst.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Thanks for the answers. One other question just for fun: which politician/party is equivalent to Sanders/Paul? (i.e. They have a lot of young, loud supporters and do much better on the internet than in real life?)

In the last year the Social Democrats have sort of fit into that pattern.

I think SF fit that better actually since the Social Democrats actually did do very well whereas SF kind of deflated in the last few months.

I support the Social Democrats and would have voted for them, but even with low expectations I wouldn't call getting 3% and 3 seats "doing very well".

They did well considering they were formed literally months before the election and apart from their incumbents mostly ran people that nobody had ever heard of. Compare to another party which tried to that, Renua (and they were formed earlier) with its zero seats.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Dublin Bay North - 4 seats still to be filled