Post by David Farrell (September 17, 2011) Today’s Irish Times editorial draws attention to the preliminary findings from the Irish National Election Study (reported here) that Irish citizens appear to hold a very different view to most of our party leaders (and most prominent media commentators) about our single transferable vote electoral system.
By Jane Suiter Political reform ran a poll here for a number of weeks, it has taken a little time to report the findings for which I apologise. We received some 485 responses to the poll with people from 16 to 65 responding from most counties across the country. These are of course not nationally…
Posted by David Farrell (March 4, 2011) In an earlier post, Liam Weeks extolled the virtues of transfers in STV. Data supplied by RTE’s election results service provide interesting insights into how Irish voters made strategic use of transfers in this election. As ever there is much to pore over, but here are two interesting…
Posted by David Farrell (written by James Gilmour) Following the financial crisis, demonstrations and riots outside the Parliament (Althingi), early elections in April 2009, and a significant change of government, the Icelandic Parliament voted on 16 June 2010 to set up a directly elected Constitutional Assembly “for the purpose of reviewing the Constitution of the…
David Farrell (July 22, 2010) The Joint Committee launched its long-anticipated final report (relating to its deliberations over the electoral system) earlier today — running at over 200 pages, with 29 recommendations. There is lots to pick through, but for me the main headlines are the following: The establishment of a Citizen’s Assembly to consider…
David Farrell (July 5, 2010) The following letter appeared in today’s Irish Times: Madam, – In recent times, I have wondered whether the collective membership of the Dáil has the ability to cope with matters of national importance, which impact on the daily lives of our citizenry. The low and blinkered level of debate relating…
Irish Politics Forum 