The electronic results from the constituencies of Dublin North, Dublin West and Meath are
available on the internet:- Dublin results and
Meath results. It is not possible to verify that these
results are correct, but the fact that the system was only used on a small fraction of the
constituencies means that one can compare the results against the verifiable elections
held in the other constituencies. Unfortunately, the government is now planning to use an
electronic system nationally for the European and local elections in June. Not only will these
elections use new software, the government will not be given access to the source code until
4 months after the election. A foreign corporation is being given complete power to control
our elections and to determine the results.
If one assumes that these results are accurate (given that they are similar to the results
in the other constituencies), then it is possible to answer the question:- How many people
vote for parties?
Taking Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in Meath as an example.
Both parties ran 3 candidates in Meath.
If everyone who gave their first preference to Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were committed party
supporters, they would have given their 2nd and 3rd preferences to the other candidates
of the same party. In other words, the average preference for their party candidates would be
2.5.
Similarly, if people voted for candidates and gave no consideration to party affiliation, then
the average preference for their party candidates would be 8 (there were 14 candidates
in the constituency, so 8 is the average of perferences 2 .. 14)
The tables below show the average preferences for those gave their first preference to
each candidate. For example, 7294 people gave their first preference to Trevor Sargent in
Dublin North. If one averages the subsequent preferences for each candidate, one finds that
the next preferences of Trevor Sargent's supporters was Sean Ryan, with an average preference
of 5.12, followed by Nora Owen with an average preference of 6.00.
Where voters did not fully complete the ballot, the remaining candidates were given
the average of the remaining preferences. For example, there were 12 candidates in Dublin
North. If a voter only used preferences 1 to 10, the remaining 2 candidates were given a
preference of 11.5
The formula for party support is
p=Party Support
c=Total Candidates
k=Party Candidates
(sum(k)-1)p+(k-1)/2(1-p)=X, where X is the value from the electronic results.
Take the 3 Fianna Fail candidates
Candidate FPV FF1 FF2 AVG
Brady 8493 3.97 4.75 4.36
Dempsey 11534 4.45 4.86 4.655
Wallace 8759 4.13 5.19 4.66
Overall average preference for party candidates: 4.569484819
2.5p+(1-p)8=4.569484819
2.5p+8-8p=4.569484819
2.5p+8-8p=4.569484819
-5.5p+8=4.569484819
-5.5p=-3.430515181
p=0.623730033
For Fine Gael, the figures are as follows:=
Candidate FPV FG1 FG2 AVG
Bruton 7617 4.24 5.11 4.675
English 5958 4.85 6.18 5.515
Farrelly 3877 4.31 4.86 4.585
Overall average preference for party candidates: 4.941776874
2.5p+(1-p)8=4.941776874
2.5p+8-8p=4.941776874
2.5p+8-8p=4.941776874
-5.5p+8=4.941776874
-5.5p=-3.058223126
p=0.556040568
The result of these calculations:= 62.37% of FF votes are "party" votes - the remainder
are "candidate" votes. For FG, the figure for "party" votes is 55.6%.
Given that approximately 40% of party voters are voting for a candidate rather than
a party, and that 9.5% gave their first preference to independents at the last election,
it appears that there is a 50-50 split between those who vote for parties and those
who vote for candidates.
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