Elections 2011

Last Friday, Irish citizens went to the polls to cast their votes. They punished the former Fianna Fail government and the Greens that formed a coalition with them. Fine Gael -and Labour- was the big winner but failed to gain a majority of the seats. Both parties are working hard at forming a coalition, but the financial situation is far worse then they expected.

Election 2011 results

FF20	FG76	Lab37	SF14	Gre0	Oth19

Almost a week later, the final results are out. The counts and recounts are not as easy as in Canada, where the candidate with the most votes is the winner also known as "first-past-the-post".

Here are the count details from the 2011 elections.

Candidate			Party		1st Pref		Share		Quota		Count		Status		Seat
*	Joanna Tuffy				7,499		17.55%		0.88		7		Made Quota		1
§	Frances Fitzgerald				7,281		17.04%		0.85		8		Made Quota		2
	Robert Dowds				5,643		13.21%		0.66		9		Elected		3
	Derek Keating				5,933		13.89%		0.69		9		Elected		4
	Eoin O Broin				5,060		11.84%		0.59		(9)		Not Elected
*	John Curran3				5,043		11.80%		0.59		(7)		Eliminated
	Gino Kenny				2,471		5.78%		0.29		(6)		Eliminated
*	Paul Gogarty				1,184		2.77%		0.14		(6)		No expenses
	Mick Finnegan				990		2.32%		0.12		(5)		No expenses
	Rob Connolly				622		1.46%		0.07		(5)		No expenses
	Michael Ryan4				375		0.88%		0.04		(4)		No expenses
	Colm McGrath				253		0.59%		0.03		(3)		No expenses
	Jim McHale				255		0.60%		0.03		(2)		No expenses
	Niall Smith				113		0.26%		0.01		(1)		No expenses

You can see that there are 4 seats to be won. It took seven counts before Joanna Tuffy reached the quota. Before that, for every following count, the lowest 'First Preference' candidates were eliminated and the votes transferred. That means that on their ballots, instead of counting the 'No. 1', scrutators were now looking at 'number 2' preference. Frances Fitzgeral made the quota in round 8. And 'Count 9' was the final elimination and resulted in Eoin O'Broin not being elected. Simple enough for a Thursday?