Irish General Election Research Articles

But How Many Candidates Should We Have in Donegal? Numbers of Nominees and Electoral Efficiency in Ireland

When the results of an analysis fly in the face both of generally accepted theory and the practice of professional politicians, it is usually a good idea to reconsider whether the point is really established. Such is the case with the small literature regarding the effects of nomination strategies on the outcomes of Dáil Éireann elections that has developed in these pages since the publication of an article by Cohan, McKinlay and Mughan (‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973’, thisJournal, v (1975), 363–83). The original article made several valuable points, including a demonstration that patterns of transfer votes may be more important than the distribution of first preference votes in determining the result of elections under the single transferable vote (STV) system, and an extension of the wasted vote concept to STV, majority, and proportional elections. Unfortunately, the notes that have followed have all focused on the most questionable conclusion of the original article, that overnomination hurts a party's chances of electing the maximum possible number of deputies.

Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System: The Dail Elections of 1969, 1973 and 1977

In an innovative and carefully argued article (‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973’, this Journal, V (1975), 363–83) on the Irish Single Transferable Vote (STV) system in the 1969 and 1973 Dail elections, A. S. Cohan, R. D. McKinlay and Anthony Mughan state a proposition that requires further analysis. They argue that ‘the optimal number of candidates for a party is equal to the largest number of seats that the party might hope to win’ in a constituency, instead of the more common practice of nominating a larger number of candidates. The reasoning behind this proposition is that the nomination of fewer candidates means a greater concentration of the party's vote on these candidates and hence fewer vote transfers and less potential wastage of votes.

The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1977

In an earlier article in this Journal (‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973’, V (1975), 363–83) we argued that in elections generally the critical concern of political party leaders is not how many votes they may amass. Instead, they need to be concerned with how many votes of those they receive they are actually able to use to elect candidates. It matters little if party A wins Constituency 1 by thousands of votes if it then loses Constituencies 2 and 3 by only a handful. While we suggested that the concept of the used vote that we devised might have more relevance to the Continental electoral systems than to the British and American systems, it also has some application in the latter cases as well.

THE IRISH GENERAL ELECTION, 1977

THE IRISH GENERAL ELECTION, 1977 Get access Brian Farrell Brian Farrell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume XXXI, Issue 1, Winter 1978, Pages 22–36, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054240 Published: 01 January 1978

The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973

In the 1969 Irish general election, the outgoing government party, Fianna Fail, was once again returned with a majority of seats in the Dail Eireann; it had been in power since 1957. All but one of the remaining seats were distributed between Fine Gael and Labour, which fought the election as separate parties. In 1973, Fine Gael and Labour agreed to form a coalition to fight the coming election and won a majority despite the fact that Fianna Fail received a higher percentage of first-preference votes in 1973 than it had in 1969.1This raises the question of how a political party can increase its total share of the vote yet lose seats in parliament.

The rhetoric of emerging nationalism: A case study in Irish rhetorical failure

In the 1922 Irish general election campaign, the cause of self‐determination split itself into two opposing groups. While the factions argued, from apparently common ground, they were in reality much different and argued from separate universes of discourse. This polarization and the lack of traditionally democratic methods in the political arena made it difficult to bring about change rhetorically.

The Importance of Positional Voting Bias in the Irish General Election of 1973

The Importance of Positional Voting Bias in the Irish General Election of 1973

Irish general election

Irish general election