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Quirks and oddities
The last 5 general elections from 1997 back to November 1982 include over 200 individual constituency elections. Some of them have unusual features. Heading the poll is an almost certain guarantee of success in a general election. Only once in the last 5 elections has the poll-topper failed to win a seat. The unlucky candidate was John Ellis, contesting Sligo-Leitrim for Fianna Fail in November 1982. He topped the poll with over 92% of the quota, but was overtaken by 2 other Fianna Fail candidates who were much better at attracting transfers. Donegal South-West's count in the November 1982 election had a couple of unusual features. In this 3-seat constituency, 3 candidates were elected on the first count, 2 for Fianna Fail and 1 for Fine Gael. However, the counting continued until the fourth count, with the surplus of all 3 elected candidates being distributed, in order to determine whether the Workers Party candidate, Seamus Rodgers, would retain his deposit (he did). It is quite common for all 3 seats in a 3-seat constituency to be held by candidates of different parties, but it is quite unusual for it to happen in a 5-seater. In the last 5 elections this has happened only twice, both times in 1992, in the constituencies of Dun Laoghaire and Wicklow. In the case of Wicklow, one of the candidates was an independent who had split from Fianna Fail. In Dun Laoghaire, the successful candidates represented 5 separate political parties. Perhaps the unluckiest candidate of the last 5 elections was Michael Smith of Fianna Fail in Tipperary North in November 1982. On the first count he polled 97.39% of the quota, just 210 votes short, but he failed to get elected. The 3-seat constituency was split almost 50-50 between Fianna Fail on one side and Fine Gael / Labour on the other. Labour had their best ever election in 1992, winning 33 seats but the party threw away 3 seats (in Dublin North, Dublin South and Dublin South-Central) simply by not running enough candidates. Fine Gael made the opposite mistake in Limerick West in 1987. Their 3 candidates had well over a quota between them, but their transfers went astray and the lone PD candidate took the seat. |
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