67 thoughts on “Hold The Mayo

  1. Harry Molloy

    If true then this is massively serious.

    But I will need some convincing given the calibre of some of the independents in Mayo, e.g. Stephen Manning, he who was horsed out of the counting centre.

    The funny think was that he was sharing pictures of spoiled votes on his facebook page, but it was his own supporters who were spoiling them by marking with an X instead of a number, and by photographing the bloody things!
    This guy is good, the integrity ireland videos would be hilarious were it not for the fact that they routinely stop country proceedings in castlebar by placing judge, guards, registrars etc under citizens arrest

  2. newsjustin

    Mmmmmm I doubt it.

    How would they even know there’s 10,000 votes missing. Unless they were watching us vote!!

    I wonder are they basing the 10,000 figure on the number of friends and family who said they’ed vote for them.

    1. Sam

      I don’t know on what basis they claim to know there are 10,000 votes missing, but you’d hardly need spy cameras to check.
      The polling stations keep track of who voted, by crossing names off lists, and they count how many ballots they gave out.
      The figures for the ballots counted in the count centre should agree with the figures from the polling stations.

      1. newsjustin

        No. In his Facebook post he talks of “10,000 independent votes”, as if he knows who people voted for.

          1. Shane

            Each polling station reports the number of ballot sheets issued.

            These are totted up and returned to the returning officer. That way if there’s an allegation like this there’s a second count of how many votes their ought to be. You’d need a conspiracy that included all the election officials to get away with this kind of stroke

    1. The Real Jane

      Who can say? However, if your man is what they’re churning out in Mayo, who’s to say that they’re able to vote properly? It’s not that complicated but it does take a base level of literacy and numeracy.

    2. John

      The official figures show 600 spoiled votes or 0.93%. This is inline with the national trend.
      This places Mayo 13th in the country in the proportion of spoiled votes.

        1. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

          Remember Clampers, this is Volunteer work.
          They’re not getting paid for it, although you’d think they were.

  3. AL4N

    To be honest, I’d rather the person who wrote that abortion of a paragraph NOT be running the country…

  4. Mr. Camomile T

    Where are they getting those figures from? The official figures are a turnout of 69%, which seems to be in line with the national average, and 600 spoiled votes. Where is the figure of 2,400 spoiled votes coming from? And how are they estimating that 10,000 votes have disappeared?

    1. Harry Molloy

      they whip themselves into a frenzy of indignation at a perceived slight and start throwing around figures and ideas which quickly become “facts”

  5. Baz

    Stephen Manning can’t figure out why his vote was so low, I’m sure family and friends didn’t even vote for him but he refuses to believe it!

  6. FoxFire

    Mayo should be removed from the list of constituencies.
    2 FF and 2 FG elected – basically said well done for the last 20 years, yer all doing a great job and sure Inda did great things for May-Oh!

  7. Neilo

    I know! The barefaced cheek of voters that tend to the political centre must be dealt with by the Broadsheet Thought Police.

  8. The Real Jane

    They like a good laugh down the high court, I’d say they’re awaiting these papers with bated breath.

  9. Trialist

    Stephen “Walter Mitty” Manning saw himself top of the poll, taking Kenny’s seat, so he must be the new Taoiseach!

  10. Liam Deliverance

    Just wondering, is there a record of voter and ballot paper taken at the polling station. In other words when I present myself to get my ballot paper, do they cross Liam Deliverance of the list and add the number of the ballot paper issued to me?

  11. Deluded

    No, the ballot papers are numbered like a raffle ticket book but like a raffle ticket it can’t be connected to you unless you write your name on it.
    When you present yourself for voting then you are crossed off the list of names, that’s all.

    1. Cromuel

      And yet I’ve read many times that the strategist of the parties can identify voting patterns street by street and even say what way the people on a particular street will vote, house by house, based on the ballots. How could they do this?

      1. Deluded

        I would be interested to know that, Cromuel. I always presumed that each politician has a list of friends, families and “clients” and by a process of elimination approximates the patterns of remaining voters. I imagine there are less than a thousand ballot papers in a box from any one polling station.
        I don’t know if any politico will divulge how accurate this is or if it is used to manipulate people by suggesting their vote is not-so-secret.

      2. The Real Jane

        Well, I think each ballot box has far fewer votes in it than you’d imagine. Is it something like 500 or 1000 or something? Then you maybe have 60% turnout, possibly even less. So you aren’t talking about that many pieces of paper. Then the strategists know who will vote for them and they’ll be able to take that lot of the list. They probably know some more who will never vote for them, whittling the list down further. After that, well, how far wrong can you really go with a few year’s experience? Most of the parties will have some people hanging around all day long watching who turns up to vote at which box and I’d say after a few years of doing that you probably do get a fair idea of what’s going on.

      3. Sam

        They can’t know that for sure, but they do keep records from canvassing of who people said they’d vote for ( which isn’t always the truth – my folks tell every canvasser that they’re giving their candidate no. 1 just to get them to move on). Look for the ones with clipboards who are getting told what the woman in no. 26 said as she took a leaflet.

        They compare that with the returns from the ballot box for that area (all boxes are numbered and the tally counters record the box number and area when they count).

        Claiming to get it house by house is an exaggeration, but they can make informed guesses at how it will go as boxes are opened from each polling station.

  12. steve38x

    In wexford hundreds of votes were spoilt because the voting papers were not stamped correctly by the officials.

  13. Domi

    Just up on the Integrity Ireland fb page. Seems fair to me: https://www.facebook.com/IntegrityIRL/ Stephen T Manning I haven’t seen the evidence Robert, but was informed by a trusted source that it was 2,400 spoiled votes – plus, a good number of voters were turned away in circumstances which they have taken issue with – plus, there were reports of several ‘green bags’ being removed from at least one ballot station without security or proper explanation.. when one adds to that a general sense of bewilderment and disbelief that Mr Kenny would still receive so many first-preference votes in light of what people were saying on the doorsteps… well, it seems some questions might yet need to be answered. However, in the event that these reported facts or figures prove incorrect, we will amend accordingly.. Seeking independent verifications now..

  14. Thomas P

    Trust in the election process and count is paramount in a democracy. One of the issue of our STV system is that the count has to be centralised (in order to screen for 2nd, 3rd … preference). In countries with other voting systems the count is usually done in each polling station, right after vote closes and only the results need to be centralised. The counting process is mostly done by volunteer citizens and anybody can come a scrutinise the process from the opening of the station, to the announcement of the results of that particular station.
    That would require a change in voting system. Either single seats constituency with 2 rounds of votes, or 10-ish seats constituencies, with single list voting like for EU elections. It may change the political landscape though.

    1. Domi

      Integrity Ireland is a volunteer organisation. Members can come and go as they wish. But they sign up to certain guidelines. If they break them, they don’t get direct support anymore. Maybe that’s what happened? Maybe you should ask Mr Doocey?

  15. Trialist

    Doocey and some of manning’s other “friends” found out the truth about manning and broke away.

  16. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

    I can’t read all those comments. There’s too many.

    Has anyone considered that maybe, just maybe there was a higher percentage of ballot sheets with Hitler moustaches in the Mayo constituency than in others?
    -Eh?
    -Hence the high number of ‘spoiled’ votes…

    I would’ve drawn a dick on mine if I lived there.

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