Tomorrow Never Knows

At the time of writing 00:07 hrs February 25th 2011, Ireland has entered one of the most important and possibly frightening days in it's history. At 07:00 hrs polling stations will open across the country and those interested will cast their votes as to who will govern the country for the next 5 years.

The Republic of Ireland uses The PR system during elections which means that if 15 candidates put themselves forward, the voter can choose them in order of preference from 1 to 15. Each constituency has a quota candidates must reach before being deemed elected so if the quota is 7234 (random number but quite common quota) and a candidate receives 9235 first preference votes (or No. 1's as they are known) he or she is elected and the surplus No.1 votes (2001) are discounted and the number 2 votes on each ballot paper are allocated to those who did not reach the quota, also at this point the person with the least votes is eliminated all of their Number one votes are now dead and again the No. 2 votes on these papers are re allocated too so if the last person got 199 first preference votes, there will now be 2200 ballot papers going into what is called the second count . In The first count if I only got 7200 I am not elected but might pick up the 34 No.2 votes from the surplus of the person elected and the person eliminated to get me past the post and so it goes on and on, often until the sixth count and sometimes where 5 seats are available and only 4 reach the quota the person with the most votes after everyone else is eliminated is deemed elected.

This system may seem complicated to those who have not grown up with it but for those of us who are used to it, it provides great drama and that is where the focus of attention will be on Saturday.

The Irish web site boards.ie set up a mock election on February 6th and managed to attract over 20,000 voters, the results, though not to be relied upon make interesting reading and will give you some idea of what our ballot paper looks like and how each constituency is doing and can be viewed at http://www.boards.ie/vote/results.php?type=national

On Saturday the counting begins and is probably best viewed at www.rte.ie from about mid-day Irish time. It will make good viewing if you stick with it but after the drama comes the deal making between successful parties if necessary but on March 9th the people of Ireland will get to see what promises have been broken. For all the wrong reasons Ireland has been in the spotlight for the past 2 years, today could be the first step on a long road to economic recovery, keep your fingers crossed for us