www.uibhfhaili.com

It looks like something you'd see in North Korea, if they had elections there!!

I know who I and most of Bracknagh will be voting for:

Bracknagh man on comeback trail

Date: 01 April 2009
By Grace O'Dea
A BRACKNAGH man will attempt to regain his lost seat on Offaly County Council in June's local elections.
Frank Weir lost his seat in the 2004 elections after serving as a Fianna Fáil councillor from 1991 to 2004.

He said a hip replacement in May 2004 prevented him from canvassing and led to him losing his seat on the council. This time around, he will run as an independent candidate.

Mr Weir said his main priorities are housing, employment, the upgrading of water schemes, major road improvement, village renewal schemes, designation of sites for industrial development and better health services.

A keen sportsman, he played with Gracefield and Offaly winning many county championships and played on the first Offaly senior football team ever to play in an All-Ireland Final.

http://www.offalyexpress.ie/15396/Brack ... 5127014.jp

John Bracken's election manifesto from 2007.
I wonder will he be campaigning on roughly the same issues?

So Sid didn't get elected onto Offaly county council, though he did make it onto Birr town council.
Only 333 first preferences for John Bracken! What is it with you people?

http://www.rte.ie/news/elections/local/a24.html

Also I see Alan Loughnane didn't make it onto Birr town council, a stroke politician in the making if ever I saw one!

An interesting election all round to be honest. I won't comment on the North Offaly LEA since I don't know a lot about the candidates up there, but I was shocked to see John Leahy knock out Marcella Corcoran Kennedy - I would have guessed that she was as safe a councillor as there was in the whole county. I guess the message there is that there were too many Kilcormac votes to elect no-one, and too many Banagher votes to elect no-one either. FG will have to ask themselves though if letting Tom Rigney run really helped their cause.

As for Sid, it's always hard to tell how "celebrity" candidates will do, but having met him since he decided to run, I have to confess to having been quite impressed. I'm not saying I'd have agreed with everything he stood for, but he actually seemed to have a genuine political agenda of stuff he cared about and felt needed work, and that's a lot more than can be said for a lot of candidates.

I must say Brian Whelahan’s performance came as no surprise to me. To be fair to him he was faced by two strong independent candidates in Birr town. In addition, he was faced by a strong candidate (Clendennen) from his own party who would have taken much of the traditional FG vote. Far be it for me to tell the Blueshirts what to do but they’d probably have been better off with Denis Shields on their ticket instead – a man with a Birr base but with a wide rural appeal. In fact, only Ormond and Clendennen came from outside Birr town. I haven’t seen individual tallies but I’d say Tony McLoughlin took a good vote from around the rural areas, phenomenal for a man who doesn’t drive!

The big surprise was in the Ferbane area. With five sitting candidates in situ, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy would have been one of the least likely to lose out. The border change suited Sinead Moylan perfectly though, gaining the Belmont/Shannonbridge area where I hear she did particularly well. John Leahy carried out a widespread campaign, Feighery didn’t capitalise on the added Killoughey area and as Lone Shark correctly said, there was enough of a vote there to elect one of them, Leahy’s wider appeal giving him the edge there.

In Tullamore, at least we’re spared a Sinn Fein councillor. The big surprise here was that, despite the boundary changes both Danny Owens and Johnny Butterfield taking seats, with both having reflected long and hard over which LEA to contest. FF taking three seats with something like two and a half quotas.

Like LS, I’m not au fait with the north of the county, the big talking point being FF taking three seats with less than 2.5 quotas (from memory), Tom Nolan taking 180-odd votes (quite stunning for a man who sought a Dáil nomination in 1997) and the poor performance of the FF-genepool candidates. Oh, and Nicola Hogan’s posters. The girl takes a good photo, and the eyes of her looking down at me as I drive through Edenderry!

Lastly, it looked on Saturday morning that Radio3’s election coverage was going to be informative etc. Oh how wrong we were. The reporters appeared not to know the difference between a tally and an actual count and seemed to have no idea how the single transferrable vote worked. In the end, I gave up on them.

Plain of the Herbs wrote:I must say Brian Whelahan’s performance came as no surprise to me. To be fair to him he was faced by two strong independent candidates in Birr town. In addition, he was faced by a strong candidate (Clendennen) from his own party who would have taken much of the traditional FG vote. Far be it for me to tell the Blueshirts what to do but they’d probably have been better off with Denis Shields on their ticket instead – a man with a Birr base but with a wide rural appeal. In fact, only Ormond and Clendennen came from outside Birr town. I haven’t seen individual tallies but I’d say Tony McLoughlin took a good vote from around the rural areas, phenomenal for a man who doesn’t drive!

I'm not sure if I'd consider Tony McLoughlin to be a "strong" candidate myself. John Carroll fair enough, but McLoughlin I wouldn't have thought so.

Funnily enough, based on the tallies, Whelahan did quite well in the rural area, getting more than he needed from out there - it was actually Birr town where he was beaten out. Obviously Birr voters have their own agendas and their own reasons, but I was more than a little surprised when I heard that.

BnMn - I hope you got a chance to get your hands on a John Bracken election poster before it's too late. They're like those Cadbury's Creme Eggs - they come out every once in a while then they disappear for ages

73 % (or thereabouts) of a quota is strong in my book anyway.

Lone Shark wrote:I'm not sure if I'd consider Tony McLoughlin to be a "strong" candidate myself. John Carroll fair enough, but McLoughlin I wouldn't have thought so.

For a political junkie such as myself this election was very interesting. The various ins and outs have been covered pretty well already but the issue remains that there were more than a few suprises such as both Sid and Corcoran Kennedy not being elected to the County Council.

Lone Shark wrote: As for Sid, it's always hard to tell how "celebrity" candidates will do, but having met him since he decided to run, I have to confess to having been quite impressed. I'm not saying I'd have agreed with everything he stood for, but he actually seemed to have a genuine political agenda of stuff he cared about and felt needed work, and that's a lot more than can be said for a lot of candidates.

This may be true, but nonetheless with only four seats available it is easy to see where he was caught out. Ormond was always going to get in, Percy, whatever his ability, did well, as expected, with the Kinnity/Coolderry vote while both O'Loughlin and Carroll are two lefty socialist politicains who do a trojan amount of canvassing in and around the areas where they feel votes are on offer. I agree with LS, O'Loughlin is not a strong candidate nor is he a good politician but he has his core of followers who will follow his cult through thick and thin.

Sid may indeed have had good plans but to the ordinary tabloid reading Joe Soap this does not matter because most people haven't a clue what the County Council or indeed their Town Council does. Take the people of Birr for example: Who do they thank for their the new hospital, new library, new swimming pool and so on and so forth acquired during the last number of years? Town Council, County Council or Central Government? My guess is that most would thank the latter and few would ascribe those successes to the hard work of any particular town or county counciler Therefore most people will just vote for party and with the Cowen effect still ensuring a strong support for Fianna Fail it is not suprising to see where the squeeze occured. Indeed look at Ann Hynes Spain and Sean Doorley, two town councillers who few could argue did a trojan amount of work on Birr town council, enough that logically should surely merit re-election, yet both were discarded with Hynes-Spain doing particulary poorly.

A similar tale can be spun for Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, all those with insight and interest into the local scene are suprised to say the least that she was not re-elected. Yet the volatility of local elections coupled with general ignorance of what those elected actually do means that anything is possible.

Plain of the Herbs wrote:73 % (or thereabouts) of a quota is strong in my book anyway.

Lone Shark wrote:I'm not sure if I'd consider Tony McLoughlin to be a "strong" candidate myself. John Carroll fair enough, but McLoughlin I wouldn't have thought so.

I suppose it depends on how you measure him. The man gets votes, I can't argue with that. I just can't recall him ever actually doing anything, or making the news over anything at all. Possibly the lowest profile counciller in the county.

B na M man, agreed re. Alan Loughnane. He would knock Michael "Stroke" Fahy into a cocked hat. I believe he wanted to put the thick back into politics and the mental back into fundamentalism. Great result for FF in Birr. The Cowen effect did work, although it could be argued they were coming from a low base. Agreed re. Ann Hynes Spain and Sean Doorley being good counccillors. Politics is a cruel mistress. As for that stunningly handsome Alan Loughnane fella, onwards and upwards!!

How do they choose what votes to use as a surplus.
If the quota is 800, and a candidate gets voted in on the first round with 1000 votes how do they pick the 200 to go to the quota.

Don't understand this part of the system but strikes me as a bit random. Surely, if they counted all the number twos and divided by 5 in the above example that would be fairer.

Anyone else find it a bit worrying that Declan Ganley (like him or not) lost 3000 votes when there was a recount in the North West. Seems an incredibly large amount.

My understanding is they take one off the top of each pile until they have what they need, but I may be corrected on this.

Maybe the reason being that theose votes may need to be re-distributed if the receiver is either elected or eliminated subsequently.

corner back wrote:How do they choose what votes to use as a surplus.
If the quota is 800, and a candidate gets voted in on the first round with 1000 votes how do they pick the 200 to go to the quota.

Don't understand this part of the system but strikes me as a bit random. Surely, if they counted all the number twos and divided by 5 in the above example that would be fairer.

Anyone else find it a bit worrying that Declan Ganley (like him or not) lost 3000 votes when there was a recount in the North West. Seems an incredibly large amount.

corner back wrote: Anyone else find it a bit worrying that Declan Ganley (like him or not) lost 3000 votes when there was a recount in the North West. Seems an incredibly large amount.

They found a bundle of votes belonging to another candidate in with his. I think it was 3 x 1000 bundles.

Plain of the Herbs wrote:My understanding is they take one off the top of each pile until they have what they need, but I may be corrected on this.

Maybe the reason being that theose votes may need to be re-distributed if the receiver is either elected or eliminated subsequently.

Ya, they take them randomly, as far as I know. The e-voting machines were even programmed to do this randomly