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If I were Taoiseach
One of the pleasures of looking at election results is watching how a candidates votes are transferred when they are eliminated (or when their surplus is being distributed). Sometimes, however, the votes of 2 or more candidates are transferred together. For example, returning officers may eliminate the 2 lowest candidates together when their combined vote does not reach that of the third lowest candidate. This can be very annoying if the candidates have a significant amount of votes. The worst example of this from the last Dail election was Dublin North, where the 7th and final count saw the joint elimination of Clare Daly of the Socialist Party and Philip Jenkinson of Fine Gael.
While one can guess how the votes from the 2 eliminated candidates were distributed, one cannot be sure. Quite apart from that, it makes the Election Database graphs drab and colourless. If I were Taoiseach, I would introduce a rule so that, once a candidate had reached a particular fraction of the quota (perhaps one-eighth or one-quarter) then that candidate's votes must be transferred on their own. This would also mean that all surpluses would be transferred separately, unlike in the 1994 European election in Dublin, where the surpluses of Patricia McKenna and Niall Andrews were distributed together. To bring up the situation before the final count, point at Clare Daly's or Philip Jenkinson's name in vertical or horizontal mode and double-click. The program will perform the Zap process until the candidate pointed-at is elected or eliminated. |
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