election leaflets redone again

by Jonah Fri Feb 20, 2004 16:37

Tallymen, and women for that matter, were the people watching the volunteer vote counters. All were party activists and so forth. Their job was to count how many votes the candidate got in each box, thus allowing the candidate to know which part of the constituency he was strong in and which was weak.

He was also there to make sure that if one of the opposition tallymen claimed one of his votes was spoilt, he could argue that it wasn't, while trying to claim his rival's often legitimate vote was valid.

Fantastic buzz in recounts when you and about half a dozen people are watching some poor bastard like a hawk and fighting vote by vote to make sure you get all you're entitled too.

Being a Tallyman required nerve, aggressive use of sharp elbows, an uncanny ability to lie and a knowledge of the PR-STV system bordering on the disturbing. But all Tallymen were united in their appreciation of the occasional sighting of a 'Call This Choice?' spoilt vote. My own particualr favourite being one that mispelt choice, and indeed, anarchism.

by Leon Fri Feb 20, 2004 16:58

If you know that box A will have alot of votes like

[1] SP
[2] SWM
[3] SP

and box B will have alot like

[1] SP
[2] SP
[3] SWM

can you influence who 'gets elected' by choosing the order the boxes are opened?

If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal

by hearhear Fri Feb 20, 2004 17:03

E-voting is the way to go. Fuck ballot boxes and ballot papers, this leads a paper trail that can leaves soem evidence of electoral fraud. I

by elctioneer Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:37

I don't know who these volunteers are counting the votes. Votes are counted by local authority officials. The main benefit of tallies to the parties and I suppose independents is to know where you are strong and where you are weak so you can target areas for improvement or consolidation. it seems the government is to allow local info under it's latest proposals. The order in which boxes are opened shouldn't come into it unless you are referring to the process of distributing surpluses. There has always been a controversy about random samples of papers been taken of the top of an elected candidates votes to physically transfer the surplus as these would not be representative of all the next preferences, and even could all be from one other candidate if that candidates transfers had created the surplus.

One of the advantages of electronic voting is to correct this anomoly...however it appears that this will not be the case and the machine will still take a random sample (thus negating on of the major advantages in using the nmachine)

by Electioneer Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:40

Leon,

You'll really have to explain how the order of openning boxes effects the result, I can't make it out from the examples you give. The final total is the sum of all boxes.

by Limerick1919 Sat Feb 21, 2004 19:59

Quota 8,000
I get elected first count with 8,200
I now have surplus of 200 votes to be distributed amongst remaining candidates. The number 2's in other words.
count all number 2s and divide by forty- correct. But then if socialist party person got 2000 number 2's only 50 physical papers can be put on their pile and it is the top 50 i.e random (leaving 1950 not used).
When they get eliminated later my number threes/fours on those fifty slips come into play so you can never get an exact result because the other 1950 unused papers might have a different number 3 based on geography etc

Isn't this right and isn't this one of the reasons that recounts can keep throwing up slightly different results.

If it isn't - apologies.

BTW even though it doesn't change anything I love buzz of counts and for that reason will hate the electronic machines.

by Mark Dennehy Sun Feb 22, 2004 18:09

Limerick is almost right. Consider for a moment, an imaginary election for two seats with a quota of 1000 and three candidates, A, B and C.

A gets 1200 first preference votes, B and C both get 900 each.
A is declared elected, and now 200 of his votes are randomly drawn from the pile (or as randomly as is practicable, which in mathematical terms means "not very randomly at all"). Those 200 votes are now distributed to B and C. Since they're both within arm's reach of the quota, who gets elected can come down to how the 200 votes are taken from the pile.

That's why you had so many recounts during the last general election where the results changed after the recount - and given that there were candidates elected on the basis of a single vote or two in some cases (and in Kathy Sinnot/John Dennehy's case, that's now going to the courts...), the randomness gets to elect the candidate, and not the people's votes.

How should it be done? Well, you look at A's 1200 votes, and see how many of these give second preference to B and how many go to C. Say it's a 60-40 split in B's favour. So you give B 120 votes and C 80 and that's the correct result.

However, it seems the proposed eVoting system doesn't do that - instead it uses a psuedo-random number generator in the software to pick the 200 votes at random. Which is stupid, since one of the major benefits of eVoting is the ability to run the PR system correctly.

by Electioneer Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:29

I think its the same point about surpluses but made in a different way i.e. the geography of the surplus effecting the result or the party affiliation of the surplus doing the same thing

by Electioneer Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:33

The point I was querying was how he order of openning the boxes would make a difference. The 8,200 votes in the example would be the total which would have been mixed. So the 200 is a random sample. The boxes pojt wasn't made by Limnerick 1919 though.

by pc Mon Feb 23, 2004 15:20

my point was asking a bout the tallymen was just that,

so what a if a few hundred people get a kick of tally men its not mportnat for the rest of the country thats why i don't know why there so much focus on tallymen

by jh Mon Feb 23, 2004 17:02

em they would constently break done would there be any point on having a hand writing vote cast along side the electronic one

by Tallyman Tue Feb 24, 2004 12:48

The randomness does not come into effect on the 2nd count.

If you have 3 seats and 5 candidates

Quota 1001
A - 1400
B - 800
C - 800
D - 800
E - 200

A gets elected with a surplus of 400.
This surplus is now distributed even though E cannot possibly catch candidate D. This is because E can save his deposit by getting 1/3 of the quota.

Second count

B + 100 = 900
C + 100 = 900
D + 100 = 900
E + 100 = 300

To get these figures all the number 2's on candidate A's ballot papers are counted with votes being allocated in proportion to the total number of number 2's. At this point ballot papers are randomly selected from each pile of number 2 votes on A's ballot papers allocated to each other candidate.

Third count

Candidate E eliminated

B + 110 = 1010
C + 100 = 1000
D + 80 = 980

Non-transferrable = 10

The extra votes for each candidate include the randomly selected papers that had a Number 1 for candidate A that were allocated to candidate E when A's surplus was distributed.

B is elected and C is elected without reaching the quota.

If there is a re-count, the randomly selected ballots are not re-integrated into the total vote but are counted seperately so that the same random sample is counted each time. The different result arises from ballot papers being mis-sorted or ballot papers being included or excluded on legal grounds.

Hope this helps and makes sense.

by Electioneer Tue Feb 24, 2004 13:01

...I think Tallyman has given the most cogent example. But does the deposit still come into it under new election rules, or was it abolished??

by tallyman Tue Feb 24, 2004 14:37

The deposit has been abolished. Under the new rules candidates must be endorsed by a registered political party or if they stand as an independent they must get 15 electors in the ward/constituency they wish to stand to endorse them for local elections and 30 in Dáil elections