Ireland by-elections, 2014

[EPG]

As for Dublin West, here is a map to show you why people in River Forest were one of the biggest (successful) groups of complainants to last year's Constituency Commission.

[EPG]

I have no information for the actual districts covered by each polling station, except for their actual addresses. I tried to approximate their boundaries using electoral divisions. Treat this as a very rough guess of the boundaries, but the general areas should be about right.

As before, notable results by other candidates included McGuinness (Fianna Fáil), who won over 5% in the two polling stations just north of the Navan Road. O'Gorman (Green) and Esebamen (non-party) didn't surpass 5% in any polling station, though Esebamen did get 5.3% in one ballot box.

[EPG]

Of course, it's important to note that these are ALL approximate figures to a couple of percent, because tallies are based on unofficial observations of ballot papers on count day.

[ObserverIE]

I have no information for the actual districts covered by each polling station, except for their actual addresses. I tried to approximate their boundaries using electoral divisions. Treat this as a very rough guess of the boundaries, but the general areas should be about right.

http://data.fingal.ie/ViewDataSets/Details/default.aspx?datasetID=373

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[EPG]

Thank you for the link and for the new signature photo, which looks like a strange instance of the damned looking forward to oblivion.

[ObserverIE]

Thank you for the link and for the new signature photo, which looks like a strange instance of the damned looking forward to oblivion.

I prefer to think of it as devotees preparing for The Rapture.

To be more exact, Rapture, Part I on May 23rd followed by Rapture, Part II sometime in 2015/6, after which we unbelievers will never see any of these people again.

[ObserverIE]

Labour now "unlikely" to contest Longford-Westmeath. Their intended candidate (aka the only sap who could be persuaded to put their name on the ballot paper) has pulled out due to discovering that he has college exams.

"Shambles" is too kind a word at this stage.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Labour now "unlikely" to contest Longford-Westmeath. Their intended candidate (aka the only sap who could be persuaded to put their name on the ballot paper) has pulled out due to discovering that he has college exams.

"Shambles" is too kind a word at this stage.

LOL. Oh lord. Hahahahaha...

[ObserverIE]

Labour now "unlikely" to contest Longford-Westmeath. Their intended candidate (aka the only sap who could be persuaded to put their name on the ballot paper) has pulled out due to discovering that he has college exams.

"Shambles" is too kind a word at this stage.

LOL. Oh lord. Hahahahaha...

It's not too late, I suppose, to take up the suggestion I made earlier and slot Mulligan into Longford-Westmeath, decking her out in blue and gold (the Longford county colours) and hoping for least worst. I know it leaves Dublin West without a candidate, but surely Ivana Bacik is at a loose end and wouldn't mind losing in yet another constituency.

[EPG]

In fact, you have hit on part of the answer. The only recent by-election at the same time as a council election was in 2009. There were two of them and Labour ran two senators, one of whom was Bacik and the other of whom was the local candidate (now a TD). No county councillor ran in Dublin South for any party. Three ran in Dublin Central, one of whom won the by-election and one of whom lost his seat. So if you are a Labour councillor, you would have to deal with both a dodgy record of keeping council seats while running for by-elections, AND a strong running mate in Joan Burton who will keep the Labour vote for herself while you get thrown out of the Dáil and are left with no seat at the council. In other words, it's a losing berth.

[ObserverIE]

Candidate for Black Spot apparently comes forward.

BTW, Longford-Westmeath, as well as having 15,000 Labour votes last time, apparently has the third-largest Labour party membership after Dublin South East and Dún Laoghaire.

[ObserverIE]

No county councillor ran in Dublin South for any party. Three ran in Dublin Central, one of whom won the by-election and one of whom lost his seat.

The councillor who lost his seat was De Udder Brudder (Maurice Ahern), who had politically lived and died on his surname, and by 2009 the Ahern name was mud even in Drumcondra. Maureen O'Sullivan and Christy Burke were re-elected comfortably enough. Mary Fitzpatrick had gone for the FF nomination for the by-election but had been muscled out again by the Drumcondra Mafia.

In Dublin South, you had a star candidate for FG, a Senator who was already a prospective candidate for Labour, and the deceased deputy's son for FF. I'm not sure if anyone else had a sitting councillor to run.

[ObserverIE]

Candidates for by-elections:

Dublin West:

Éamonn Coghlan (Fine Gael): Former international athlete (winner of the inaugural 5000m title at the World Athletics Championships in 1983 and missed out on Olympic medals by one place in both 1976 and 1980) who was appointed as an "independent" senator by Enda Kenny in 2011 but subsequently joined Fine Gael.
Loraine Mulligan (Labour): Chairperson of the party, pressed into service when no-one else wanted to stand.
Ruth Coppinger (Socialist Party): Also a sitting county councillor for the central part of the constituency and unsuccessful candidate in 2011. Likely favourite.
David McGuinness (Fianna Fáil): County councillor for the central, more working-class, end of the constituency who contested the November 2011 by-election.
Paul Donnelly (Sinn Féin): Candidate in the two 2011 elections and also running for the county council (as are McGuinness, Coppinger and O'Gorman).
Roderic O'Gorman (Green Party): Candidate in 2007 and the two 2011 elections and council candidate in the southern, middle-class, end of the constituency.
Daniel Boyne(Fís Nua): Candidate from a splinter group of the Green Party which contested the 2011 by-election with a different candidate and finished last with 40 votes, being outpaced by a couple of John Turmel-style perpetual candidates.
David Hall (Independent): The most credible of the independent candidates, former leader of a group lobbying for the interests of householders in negative equity and mortgage arrears and backed by Lucinda Creighton (ex-FG TD) and Éamon Dunphy (soccer analyst and political gadfly). Ex-member of FF.
John Frank Kidd (Independent): Seems to be campaigning on behalf of frontline public sector workers. Contested the 2011 by-election where he got 0.9% of the vote.
Seán Lyons (Independent): A county councillor in the 1990s (ex-FG?) who has unsuccessfully contested local and Senate elections since then.

Longford-Westmeath:

Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael): Outgoing county councillor from Athlone and sister of the deceased TD. Running on her experience as her sister's constituency assistant.
Denis Leonard (Labour): A county councillor from Kinnegad on the border with Meath, pressed into service when no-one else wanted to stand.
Aengus O'Rourke (Fianna Fáil): Town councillor from Athlone, also running for county council. Son of Mammy. No more need be said.
Paul Hogan (Sinn Féin): Town councillor from Athlone, also running for county council. Candidate at last election when he ended up runner-up but one for the last seat.
Kevin "Boxer" Moran (Independent): Another town and county councillor from Athlone, was FF up until the selection convention for the 2011 election when he was stymied for a party nomination. Ran as an independent and whipped Mammy's ass in Athlone but failed to garner enough support beyond Athlone to figure for a seat. Everything you would expect from the term "rural county councillor".
James Morgan (Independent): Young businessman and political novice from Longford town, running on a Longfordian Nationalist platform. Positioned to take a protest vote in the county but may not be well enough known to take full advantage of it.
Brian Fagan (Independent): Charity shop owner and charity volunteer from Mullingar town, also running for county council there and may possibly be able to appeal to the protest vote in north Westmeath.
John McNamara (Independent): Former army officer and (I think) briefly a member of SF from Drumraney (north of Athlone towards the Longford border) who is campaigning on an anti-austerity platform.
Dónal Jackson (Independent): From Athlone. Stood at the last election where he got a grand total of 61 votes. Slightly reminiscent of a golf-club bore, albeit not of the hang'em-and-flog'em variety.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The results are being counted today:

Looks like the Shinners have a chance in Dublin West

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[Tetro Kornbluth]

Longford-Westmeath as expected

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[ObserverIE]

Dublin West

1st count

Donnelly, Paul (SF) 6056 20.92%
Coppinger, Ruth (SP) 5977 20.64%
McGuinness, David (FF) 5053 17.45%
Hall, David (Ind) 3803 13.13%
Coughlan, Eamon (FG) 3715 12.83%
O'Gorman, Roderic (GP) 1856 6.41%
Mulligan, Loraine (Lab) 1505 5.20%
Lyons, Seán (Ind) 649 2.24%
Kidd, John F (Ind) 228 0.79%
Boyne, Daniel William (FN) 113 0.39%

Quota: 14,478

[ObserverIE]

Final tally from Longford-Westmeath (I haven't got detailed box tallies for this one - I was tallying the county council elections - but will ask if they're available):

McFadden, Gabrielle FG 10305 24.98%
O'Rourke, Aengus FF 7689 18.64%
Hogan, Paul SF 6034 14.62%
Moran, Kevin "Boxer" Ind 4803 11.64%
Morgan, James Ind 4698 11.39%
Fagan, Brian Ind 3639 8.82%
Leonard, Denis Lab 2840 6.88%
McNamara, John    Ind 957 2.32%
Jackson, Donal Ind 295 0.71%

Quota: 20631

"Boxer" comfortably outpolled Son of Mammy yet again in Athlone.

[Kevinstat]

It will be interesting to see how the count proceeds.  To keep a deposit a candidate has to get (including transfers) 1/4 of the quota before being eliminated, correct?  In that case determining whether or not a candidate meets that threshold might not affect the process of who gets eliminated together in either constituency.  In Dublin West the two more minor Independents and the "pure Green" splinter party nominee could be eliminated together.  At that point there would there would be 2x3 different possibilities regarding the Labour and actual Green Party nominees, the 2 being which candidate is ahead of the other and the three being whether it is mathematically possible at that point for the leader of those two candidates to (a) both the Fine Gael nominee retain his deposit, (b) just retain his deposit, or (c) neither.  The window for (b) is very narrow (between 26.16% and 28.08% of the votes for the last three candidates transferring to the Green or the Labourite), but (c) seems the most likely option in which case those two candidates can be excluded together.  With the disposition of the remaining candidates' first preferences it seems unlikely that more than one candidate can be eliminated at a time after that point, or that the count doesn't go to the end (where only two candidates have not been excluded, one of them the winner).

In Longford-Westmeath the last two candidates can be excluded together, but after that it looks like single eliminations the rest of the way.  If the transfers greatly favored Fine Gael it's possible McFadden could win before the last possible, but it doesn't seem likely.  If they decide to exclude Jackson by himself it's possible that McNamara and Leonard could be excluded together if a majority of Jackson's vote went to Fagan, but that doesn't seem likely and if they do exclude Jackson by himself that's likely because they've decided to exclude one candidate at a time.  Moran and Morgan both stand a decent chance of keeping their deposit.

I haven't even gotten into the order the candidates are excluded (based on who is last after each stage of the count).  In Dublin West, I don't see Fine Gael gaining on an Independent off transfers from other Independents, and left-of-center party candidates (even though Labour is currently in Government with them).  Hall would have a better chance of leapfrogging the Fianna Fáil candidate McGuinness, but he has a 4-point gap to close (from the first count; I've been writing this long enough that other counts may have happened in each constituency by now - I guess not).  I doubt McGuinness can break into second place, but as for the crucial final count, I don't know enough to hazard a guess.  It would be interesting to see multiple leapfrogging for the top spot.

In Longford-Westmeath the first three eliminations seem obvious, and Fagan seems likely but not certain to be the fourth candidate eliminated, but after that it gets murky.  Fine Gael seems likely to win, but can Sinn Féin pass Fianna Fáil?  Can "Boxer" pass Sinn Féin?  Can James Morgan pass "Boxer"?  We'll have to wait and see.

[EPG]

Winners are Coppinger (Socialist) in Dublin West and McFadden (Fine Gael) in Longford-Westmeath.

The most interesting statistic is the tiny Labour/Green to Sinn Féin transfer rates, particularly in Dublin West. Anyone still voting Labour is now pretty firmly non-sympathetic to Sinn Féin.

These results were expected. However, the interesting local election results were not. The changes are as radical as those in the 2011 general election. Unfortunately, that thread has been locked.

[Kevinstat]

These results were expected. However, the interesting local election results were not. The changes are as radical as those in the 2011 general election. Unfortunately, that thread has been locked.

Any idea why?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not sure. It has now been unlocked.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

With the results of the EP elections now mostly in we now know that there will be two by-elections some time later this year: one to replace Brian Hayes (FG) in Dublin South-West and the other to replace Luke 'Ming' Flanagan (IND) in Roscommon-South Leitrim. I might go into detail later but given the local election results money would be on SF in the former and FF in the latter but, again, as this is Ireland a lot will depend on candidates.

[ObserverIE]

Limited tally information on the Longford-Westmeath by-election so far.

Nothing in this week's Longford Leader, which focusses entirely on the local elections.

Only tallies by LEA in the Mullingar Topic and what looks like a selection of boxes from Westmeath in the Westmeath Examiner.

I will try to ask contacts that I was speaking to at the local election count at the weekend (the local count and the by-election count were in places about 12km apart and there were separate ballot boxes for each so there was no crossover between the people in charge of each count).

[EPG]

With the results of the EP elections now mostly in we now know that there will be two by-elections some time later this year: one to replace Brian Hayes (FG) in Dublin South-West and the other to replace Luke 'Ming' Flanagan (IND) in Roscommon-South Leitrim. I might go into detail later but given the local election results money would be on SF in the former and FF in the latter but, again, as this is Ireland a lot will depend on candidates.

In the aftermath of the Labour election losses, the party leader stepped down and is now being promoted by his colleagues as the country's next European Commissioner. The other prominent name is also a TD; therefore, in addition to these two by-elections, a third is likely. Furthermore, there is a Europe-related Seanad vacancy but the procedure to fill this is non-electoral.

[EPG]

Phil Hogan (FG, Carlow-Kilkenny) is nominated to the European Commission; if confirmed, he will cause a third outstanding by-election.